Course summary

Are you interested in how children and young people learn? Do you want to know more about their development, mental health, emotional wellbeing, and how psychology is applied to learning and teaching? Whether you already work with children and young people or would like to work with them, the BA Psychological Studies (Child Development and Education) at Birkbeck will prepare you for a wide range of jobs and career progression. This degree will give you significant skills and understanding in how psychological theory and research can support children more effectively. Drawing on our expertise in psychological sciences, you will focus on issues of relevance to professionals working with children and young people, including:

• intellectual, social and emotional development

• mental health and wellbeing

• learning and learning difficulties

• communication and relationship building

• special educational needs, inclusion and diversity

• reflective practice.

• This BA Psychological Studies (Child Development and Education) will equip you with knowledge and a critical appreciation of contemporary psychological theory and research, and key issues in educational and developmental psychology.

• The degree is unique in its highly applied focus, allowing you to explore how psychological theories (especially in educational psychology) can benefit both teachers and students. It will support you to develop your skills as a professional and to develop strategies and approaches that will be directly applicable in your work with children and young people.

• You will have access to extensive support as part of your lectures and through additional study days and workshops.

• Our graduates have successfully progressed to a wide range of careers, including specialist support workers, learning mentors, family support professionals, nursery managers, pastoral managers and Special Educational Needs coordinators. Others have continued their studies to Master’s level or gained professional qualifications, for example, as teachers, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, counsellors and psychotherapists.

• Birkbeck is strongly oriented towards research in psychological sciences and we are home to the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, the Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging and the Centre for Cognition, Computation and Modelling.

• In the 2023 National Student Survey, Birkbeck's School of Psychological Sciences ranked 5th in the UK for teaching. We are consistently regarded as one of the top institutions teaching psychological sciences in the UK. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, and for the third time, we were ranked in the top ten universities in the UK.

• mentors

• family support workers

• behaviour specialists

• primary or early years teachers.