Course Content

 Teaching Assistant

 Level 2:

Unit 1: Supporting Teaching and Learning Activities In Schools

• How teaching assistants can support the teacher in planning, teaching and evaluation of the learning activities
• The stages of planning
• Problems that may occur when supporting learning activities
• Strategies a teaching assistant may use to support pupils’ learning
• Providing feedback on learning activities to the teacher

Unit 2: Communication and Relationships With Children, Young People and Adults

• Communicating and developing positive working relationships with children and young people
• Communicating with adults
• Differences in communicating with adults and children
• Disagreements with adults and children
• Communication difficulties

Unit 3: Provide Effective Support for Your Colleagues

• The role and responsibilities of the teaching assistant
• Understanding the roles and responsibilities of others in the school team
• The role of external professionals
• Maintaining good working relationships
• Professional practice within schools

Unit 4: Safeguarding Children and Young People: The Maintenance of a Safe Working Environment

• Legislation, policies, and procedures for safeguarding children
• Prepare and maintain a safe working environment for children
• The procedures and actions in response to an emergency in school
• Types of abuse that children may experience
• Behaviour management

Unit 5: Supporting Children's and Young People's Development

• Understanding physical, emotional, communication, social and behavioural development
• Observation methods used to record learning and development
• Transitions that children may experience

Unit 6: Schools as Organisations

• Structures of education
• Specialist schools
• Legislation and school policies
• The National Curriculum
• The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED)
• The primary framework
• Early years foundation stage

 Child Psychology

 Level 3:

Unit 1: Defining Child Psychology

• How can we define childhood?
• Historical perspectives of childhood
• Emergence of psychology
• Psychoanalytical perspective
• Behaviourism
• Classical conditioning
• Changing behaviour
• The cognitive, physiological, scientific, humanistic and evolutionary approaches to psychology
• Research methods in psychology
• Child psychology tools

Unit 2: Forming Relationships in Childhood

• Attachment
• Nature/nurture debate
• Bowlby's theory
• Innate programming
• Different types of attachment
• Disruption of attachment
• The child’s first relationship

Unit 3: Perception, Cognition and Language

• Understanding language
• Cognitive structure and input
• Plurals, syntax and grammar
• The relevance of language to child psychology
• Cognition
• Vision and cognitive development
• Hearing and cognitive development
• Perception
• Piaget
• Socialization

Unit 4: Emotional, Social and Moral Development

• Social learning theory
• Cognitive priming
• Kohlberg's perspective
• Eisenberg's perspective
• Emotion and morality
• Temperament and emotional development

Unit 5: Children's Minds

• Memory and memory processes
• Short and long term memory
• Models of memory
• Prenatal memory and learning
• From memory to mental activity
• The organisation of children's minds
• How children view others in their world
• How does all this relate to child psychology?

Unit 6: Moving Towards Adulthood

• Adolescence
• Development
• Having a sense of gender
• Change