Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. The PGDip in Early Childhood Education (ECE) is designed for education professionals working with young children in the national and international sectors. This part-time course, taken over three terms, grounds participants in research evidence on child development and early childhood education to help inform policy and practice. Delivery of this course is mostly online, with a one-week residential component. You will receive a grounding in core knowledge and skills across three key domains of child development and pedagogy, and be supported in using this knowledge to implement evidence-based classroom practice:

• play-based, child-centred approaches and environments;

• supporting social-emotional development and wellbeing; and

• supporting language, literacy and executive function.

• understanding of theory and research relating to child development and effective early childhood pedagogy across the cognitive, social and emotional domains, including analysis of their robustness and the information they provide for informing practice

• a practical understanding of how to engage in research-informed practice, including seeking and critically engaging with available evidence and designing and conducting ones’ own classroom-based research

• an understanding of cross-cutting themes relevant to research-informed ECE practice and of current issues/debates in the ECE field

• the application of research and theory to practice through reflection on ones’ own teaching, in order to enhance professional performance

• the skills of independent critical thought, rational inquiry, and self-directed learning

• critical engagement with, and reflection on, current issues and debates in the field of ECE research and practice through the lens of research and theory.