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Employability and Careers

graduate students

Employability and Skills

The Early Years team recognises the importance of providing you with varied opportunities to increase your employability.

Therefore, all programmes focus on developing your employability and transferable skills. These include:

  • written and oral communication skills
  • time management
  • organisation skills
  • teamwork
  • ICT skills and digital competency
  • research skills 

These are all skills which are highly sought after by a variety of diverse employers; thus skills gained during your studies are transferable to different career pathways. Our undergraduate students have progressed to many varied and interesting careers including:

  • Nursery managers and deputy managers
  • Foundation Phase Coordinators
  • Early years / early childhood development officers
  • Play officers
  • Family Together facilitators
  • Voluntary sector training officers
  • Further and higher education lecturers

Many graduates have progressed to working in the government, voluntary and private sectors. However, the multidisciplinary nature of the School means that you can access several other careers linked to working with young children and families. These can include the police force, nursing and social work.

Volunteering

The Early Years team has designed a timetable that ensures that you have regular campus free periods in order for you to volunteer in early childhood / early years settings, to gain important practical work experience. If you are a student on the BA (Honours) Early Years Education and Care: Early Years Practitioner Status programme, you will be required to attend placements for at least 100 days (equivalent to 700 hours). This, in the main, will take place during your Level 4 and Level 5 study. This is a requirement specified by Social Care Wales to enable you to achieve both academic and practical skills, providing you with a recognised qualification for working with young children. This degree programme is included in Social Care Wales’ list of required qualifications to work within the early years and childcare sector in Wales.

Employability Week

During your final year of study, you will have an opportunity to gain further transferable and employability skills and additional qualifications and certificates by attending the Early Years ‘Employability Week’. This is a specific week where the Early Years team arrange for additional courses and/or workshops to be on offer. Partaking in these is valuable but voluntary, and they usually carry a small fee. These can include:

  • First Aid (Paediatric)
  • Safeguarding
  • Additional Learning Needs
  • How to write a CV
  • Interview skills
  • Makaton
  • Elklan
  • Mini Me Yoga

Caitlin Jones

 
“I really enjoyed the course today and found it very interesting to learn about something new! I'm very glad it took place and that I attended; I would definitely recommend it to people. I am also considering doing some future studying and training related to this”

- Mini Me Yoga – Caitlin Jones Level 6 student

Anna Latham

“It was really a wonderful week of opportunity and learning, thank you!! I feel so privileged and blessed to be studying at UWTSD where I believe the School of Early Childhood is second to none! Thank you so much for your incredible commitment and hard work in providing such an excellent course including these extra-curricular activities, and for offering us students so much support and encouragement”

- Anna Latham Level 6 student 

Kirsty Goff

“On behalf of all the students that have attended employability week, I would like to say thank you very much to all the staff that have helped with the week”

- Kirsty Goff Level 6 student

Careers

What can I do when I graduate?
The BA (Hons) Early Years Education and Care and BA (Hons) Early Years Education and Care: Early Years Practitioner Status are both great routes into a number of career paths.

Following the BA Early Years Education and Care Early Years Practitioner Status programme, you will also graduate with a licence to practice recognised on the Social Care Wales approved list of qualifications to work as an early year’s childcare professional.

On the BA (Hons) Early Years Education and Care programme, you will graduate with a degree that evidences a number of core skills needed to increase your employability and aid you in pursuing a career in the field of Early Years and related disciplines. These core skills include:

  • Excellent leadership skills including people and placement management.
  • In-depth knowledge of child development theory and practice.
  • Excellent communication skills in a range of appropriate methods.
  • Practical knowledge of planning, observation and curriculum development.
  • Sector knowledge of current policy, regulation and quality assurance.
  • Organisational and time management skills.
  • Experience in formatting and sharing information, theory and current research at a variety of levels.
  • A level of professionalism when working with children, families and professionals.
  • Research, innovation and enterprise skills.
  • Additional sector specific qualifications

Careers in Early Years

Careers options in early years, education and care could include room leaders, setting managers, play workers, youth workers, family support officer, community support officer, children’s charity roles, for example, Barnardo’s, afterschool leader, childminder, pastoral support, parenting officer, family facilitator, additional learning needs support.

Further Study

Some of our graduates progress to other further studies. Some students have progressed on to our own MA programmes including our MA Early Literacy and MA Early Years Education and Care.

Postgraduate programmes such as these offer opportunities for students to up-skill and deepen their understanding of young children and their families. Such studies have enabled postgraduate students to progress in their existing field of work and for others to move to new careers. 

Route into teaching

As a UWTSD Early Years student, you will be guaranteed an interview for the PGCE Primary programme subject to meeting entry qualification requirements. When applying for the PGCE Primary programme we in conjunction with Initial Teacher Education will support you through a mock application and interview process.

Postgraduate Study and Alternative Routes

Graduates will also be able to progress onto a number of postgraduate courses in their area of interest, a good degree classification in Early Years Education and Care meet the entry requirements for many postgraduate routes. Below are a few examples of routes previous graduates have taken Social Work:

  • Play Therapy
  • Nursing
  • Policy and Government
  • Family and Communities
  • Research
  • Speech and Language Therapy