MA Early Childhood Studies
Course Overview
The University of Bolton’s MA in Early Childhood Studies is designed to prepare future leaders for the early years sector. The social, cultural and political climate has an enormous impact on the lives of young children, influencing their development and affecting their life chances. This postgraduate course is designed to develop your awareness and understanding of these factors while cultivating your leadership, critical analysis and communication skills. We focus on supporting you to integrate these ideas with your knowledge of childhood development, helping you to achieve career success and champion the uniqueness of every child.The aim of this course is to extend your already considerable professional skills and knowledge with specialist modules that deepen your understanding of areas such as equality and diversity, early years curriculum development and childhood in a global context. Our expert team will help you gain critical reflection, analysis and evaluation skills that support your ability to determine the impact of professional interventions on the development of children and across the early years sector.
Combining this knowledge with the principles and techniques of academic research and investigation will help develop your evidence-based practice, and grow your skills in evaluating options and formulating creative solutions to complex problems. Studying leadership and management styles, theories and frameworks will support you to become more actively involved in the planning, delivery and transformation of early years and children’s services.
Overall, our aim is to help you gain the professional and transferable skills to move forward in your career, improving the services you provide to the children in your care and their families.
Highlights
- Our students are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds – sharing the individual and unique educational insights and perspectives of your peers helps to enrich your learning experience.
- We promote research and critical enquiry helping you learn to make sound, evidence-based independent judgements.
- Our excellent links with over 70 partners and external agencies means we can offer a wide variety of perspectives and research opportunities; for instance, we work with youth and community centres, early years settings, children’s centres, schools, alternative education projects, women's refuges and community projects, as well as housing, health, leisure and youth training schemes, resettlement projects, and detached, outreach and mentoring projects.
- On successful completion of this course you will be awarded an MA in Early Childhood Studies from the University of Bolton.
Key Features
- Face-to-face sessions and one-to-one support is offered by our team of highly experienced, enthusiastic and dedicated experts.
- Staff and students from across our Faculty of Health and Wellbeing work closely together. By studying alongside people from related specialisms and sectors, such as youth, community and health and social care you can benefit from a wider range of knowledge and experience that supports cross-disciplinary thinking and inter-professional working.
- Our academic team is actively involved in early childhood studies research, helping you to explore issues from a robust research-informed knowledge base.
- Specialists in the field of early years and childhood studies will be invited to join us as guest speakers and lecturers, offering you first-hand live examples of current practice.
- Our highly experienced team will support you as you develop critical thinking and research evaluation skills and apply these during your independent masters-level project.
- By choosing to study with us, you'll have the chance to enjoy Bolton's many shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities. Manchester, one of the UK's most multicultural and lively cities, is less than 20 minutes away by train. Not forgetting, the North West of England is renowned for its beautiful countryside, coastline and heritage. This makes Bolton an ideal base from which to explore some of the best cultural and outdoor activities the UK offers.
Entry Requirements
- Normally, you’ll have at least a Lower Second Class (2.2) Honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.
- We'll also consider applications where appropriate work experience can be demonstrated in lieu of, or in addition to, the published academic qualifications in line with the University’s Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL) procedures.
- You may be required to attend an interview and/or provide a portfolio of work.
- If English isn’t your first language, you’ll also need IELTS 6.0 with no less than 5.5 in any band (or equivalent). We also accept a range of other English language qualifications – please visit our English Language Requirements web page for more details.
Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.
Career Opportunities
The MA Early Childhood Studies offers you the opportunity to study and engage critically with research into the systems and social structures that support children and their families. This programme is also a good option is you’re a practitioner wishing to develop more critical and theoretical insights into early childhood practices.
On this programme, you’ll have the chance to develop your critical reflection skills, independent learning and your ability to evaluate your current professional practice.
What can I do with this qualification?
On completion of your MA, you could undertake further study by pursuing a research degree (MPhil, EdD or PhD).
Alternative career options
Graduates can also use the qualification as a stepping stone to enter a range of other careers, and for some of these roles, both relevant experience and/or post graduate study may be required. Some of these roles include:
- Counselling
- Occupational therapy
- Mental health
- Social work
- Teaching and education
- Health promotion
- Mentoring
- Armed forces
- Community support
- Care home management
- Health services management
- Child protection
- Children’s nursing
- Educational psychology
- Speech and language
- Consultancy
- Child psychotherapist
Fees & Funding
Home/EU Fees
Home students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Home fee of £8,496 for the academic year 2025/26.
International Fees
Overseas students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Overseas fee of £17,500 for the academic year 2025/26.
Bursaries
Click here for more information on our Master's Bursaries.
Important note regarding tuition fees: EU nationals who meet residency requirements (have settled or pre-settled status) may be eligible for 'Home' fee status. If you do not meet these residency requirements, overseas fees will apply. Irish citizens living in the UK or Ireland will be eligible for 'Home' fee status under the Common Travel Area arrangement. Please read the student finance for EU students web page on www.gov.uk for information.
The fees for a student's course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.
How to apply
Home Applicants
You may apply directly to the University using the University's online application form. Please select your chosen start date from the list below:
You should have to hand:
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Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
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Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
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Details of any employment history including name, address, dates and role
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Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
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Details including e-mail addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference
Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.
Please ensure your data is correct at each stage of the application before you proceed to the next page. If you use the back button at any time during the application, you should check the validity of the data you have already input.
If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or admissions-team@bolton.ac.uk
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Apply online: University of Bolton MA Early Childhood Studies - 22 September 2025
International Applicants
Thank you for your interest
In order to determine your suitability for this course as an international student and also to confirm you meet any initial eligibility criteria, we need you to answer a few short questions.
Teaching & Assessment
The Faculty of Health and Wellbeing works across a range of sectors offering professional and non-professional education and works to balance exposure to subject knowledge, theoretical perspectives and professional/practical skills. This master’s degree is part of a suite of programmes offering a cross-curriculum and multi-professional ethos in the areas of early childhood studies, community development and youth work, and health and social care.
We use a wide variety of teaching and learning methods. You can expect lectures, presentations, seminar discussions, small group workshops, small group tutorials and one-to-one tutorials, and using virtual learning environments (VLE) and e-learning packages. You’ll also need to undertake a significant amount of personal study, including general background reading, preparing for seminar activities, working on assignments and revising for examinations.
Assessment methods are also varied, allowing you to develop and demonstrate your learning in a range of ways. For example, assessments may require you to complete essays, reports, presentations, portfolios and dissertation.
Modules
The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.
- Dissertation
- Postgraduate Preparation for Research Design
- Critical Reading and Writing Skills
- Leadership and Innovation
- Equality and Diversity for Human Services
- Contemporary Issues, Policy and Practice
- Childhood in a Global Context
- Early Years Curriculum Development
Assessment methods
| Level | Assessment method |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Coursework 100% |
Learning Activities
| Level | Activity |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Guided independent study 76% Scheduled learning and teaching activities 24% |
The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.
