School of Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology with Early Childhood Studies

Planned new course

UCAS tariff 112 - 128 Contextual offers
A contextual offer is an offer to study at university that takes personal circumstances that may affect grades into account.
UCAS course code C8X3
Institution code P60
Duration

3 years

(+ optional placement)
Course type

Full-time
Study location Plymouth
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Apply at UCAS.com

The formative years of a child’s life are fundamental to their future – shaping the cognitive, emotional and social development that shapes our behaviour, understanding and success. Combining the hands-on study of social psychology, health, cognitive development, and neuroscience—with early years studies, including the role of play, education, and children in society, you’ll gain a unique understanding of how humans grow, learn, and thrive.

Careers with this subject
Our degree prepares you for a wide range of careers by equipping you with valuable skills and knowledge that provide you with a deep understanding of human behaviour, mental processes, and social interactions. This knowledge and experience will be critical in fields such as mental health, education, business, social care, but have incredible versatility across any vocations that benefit from an understanding of human behaviour.
Our joint degree provides you with valuable expertise and understanding in psychology, and the additional skills and knowledge in early years, which pave the way for careers in schools and education, play specialists and family support workers.
Our BPS accredited degrees provide you opportunities to peruse further postgraduate qualifications, that can lead to specialized roles like clinical psychologist, educational psychologist, forensic psychologist, or organizational psychologist.
The degree also helps you develop transferable skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and data analysis, which forms the basis for many careers beyond psychology.
Our hands-on teaching approach, combined with a placement year and research apprentices, offers you valuable real-world experience to give you a competitive advantage in your future professional life.
What can you do with a psychology degree?

Key features
  • Shape the psychologist you want to be. Course choices and our completely option-based final year give the freedom to explore and develop areas of psychology that interest and benefit you the most.
  • As a successful graduate, you are eligible for Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership with the British Psychological Society.
  • Gain valuable real-world experience by putting your skills and knowledge into practice with an optional placement year, or take part in an international exchange year by studying abroad.
  • You’ll go beyond the classroom and learn how psychology can have a tangible effect on the wider world with the field trips integrated throughout our curriculum - exploring how psychology can make a difference to our environment and communities.
  • You’ll look at how children learn, play, and communicate as they develop to adulthood. You’ll consider key sociological theories of how children engage with the world, and how children and adults interact with each other.
  • Get involved in the Plymouth Babylab , working to improve our understanding of how babies develop their amazing abilities, and the problems they might encounter along the way. This research lab is primarily run by students, trained to use state-of-the-art methods to explore the development of over 400 ‘baby scientists’ each year.

Course details

  • Year 1

  • In your first year, you'll study the core theories of psychology, including topics like learning, social, developmental, clinical, cognitive, and physiological psychology. You'll also begin developing key skills, such as research methods, information technology, communication, and critical thinking, all of which are crucial for your future career. You’ll also begin developing key knowledge about the sociology of early childhood and the importance of play for learning which are crucial for your future career.

    Core modules

    EEC416
    Places and Spaces for Learning and Playing 20 credits

    Throughout this module students will be introduced to a range of places and spaces that facilitates children's learning and play. There will be opportunities to link these experiences with academic theories with an aim to support the students' skills in noticing and understanding the process of learning.

    EEC423
    Children in Society 20 credits

    This module will focus on the complexity and diversity of young children’s experiences of growing up in contemporary societies. It will examine how children’s everyday lives are shaped through a wide range of structural influences and through children’s own active engagement with their worlds.

    HIPL400
    Interprofessional Learning 1

    PSYC421
    Cognitive Psychology 20 credits

    This module introduces some of our fundamental mental processes, such as learning, memory, attention and reasoning. Across a series of lectures and practical workshops you’ll explore some of the core concepts in cognition – designing and testing your own experiments to build skills and experience in basic research skills, such as problem solving, hypothesis testing, data collection and the communication of your findings

    100% Coursework

    PSYC422
    Clinical and Developmental Psychology 20 credits

    This module will establish an understanding of clinical and developmental psychology. You will learn about contemporary issues relating to mental health and neurodiversity, as well as the history of how conditions are classified, diagnosed, and treated. You also examine how cognitive, social and emotional abilities develop and change over childhood, informing our understanding of their origins and limitations on maturation.

    100% Examinations

    PSYC424
    Social Psychology 20 credits

    Introducing fundamental topics forming the basis of social psychology you will learn about the formation of personality, relationships and our perceptions and prejudices of others, as well as our understanding of how particular social situations affect our thoughts and behaviours. Embedded workshops provide practical training on the research skills and techniques specific to the study of social psychology.

    100% Coursework

    PSYC425
    Perception and the Brain 20 credits

    In this module you will learn about the biological bases of behaviour and the mechanisms of sensory perception. One strand of lectures focuses on the fundamentals of neuroscience, brain anatomy and function, and research methods in neuroscience including studies of disorders of the mind and brain. Another lecture strand concerns perception, with a particular focus on the mechanisms of human vision and hearing.

    100% Examinations

  • Year 2

  • With a focus on developing research and practical skills, your psychology modules will give you additional hands-on experience in designing and testing your own experiments to explore a range of topics. You also continue to build upon your knowledge of the core areas of psychology, getting to grips with key concepts from across cognitive, developmental, social and clinical psychology. You will also learn about the development of language in early years.

  • Year 3

  • If you choose, you can take an optional work placement after your second year, expanding your knowledge of psychology in a real-world context across the UK. Apply to spend a year honing your skills on a psychological professional/work placement. Gain invaluable experience, make professional contacts and receive a Certificate of Professional/Industrial Placement. Please note some placements may require Occupation Health and/or Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

  • Final year

  • You will have freedom of choice about the topics you specialise in for your final year. In psychology you'll study four current topics from a list of sixteen options, taught by world experts in their fields. A typical year’s list includes options in clinical, forensic, developmental, health, occupational, cognitive, social, and neuropsychology. You'll also choose to work on your own research project, supervised by one of our staff. All our staff are active researchers, and all our staff teach, unlike other universities. As one of the largest schools of psychology in the UK, you can be confident that we can cover almost every area of interest. In addition, you’ll learn about risk in childhood, and about models of childhood and their impact on, past and present, on the treatment of children.
The modules shown for this course are those currently being studied by our students, or are proposed new modules. Please note that programme structures and individual modules are subject to amendment from time to time as part of the University’s curriculum enrichment programme and in line with changes in the University’s policies and requirements.

Entry requirements

UCAS tariff

112 - 128

Contextual offers: Typically, the contextual offer for this course is 8 points below the advertised tariff. A contextual offer is an offer to study at university that takes into account individual circumstances that are beyond your control, and that can potentially impact your learning and your exam results, or your confidence in applying to university.

Check your eligibility for a contextual offer

A level
Normal minimum entry requirements are 112-128 points, excluding General Studies.
BTEC National Diploma/QCF Extended Diploma
Normal minimum entry requirements are DMM-DDM in any subject.
Access to Higher Education at level 3
Normal minimum entry requirements are Pass (Science, Humanities, Combined, Social Sciences), with at least 33 credits units at Merit.
Welsh Baccalaureate
BBB at A Level or BB at A level plus 120 points from WB.
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Normal minimum entry requirements are 120 points, to include at least BB from Advanced Highers.
Irish Leaving Certificate
Normal minimum entry requirements are to obtain H2 H2 H2 H3 H3 (all at Higher level), plus Ordinary Level Grade C Maths and English.
International Baccalaureate
Normal minimum entry requirements are 26-30 points overall.

Fees, costs and funding
2024-2025 2025-2026 *
Home N/A £9,535
International N/A £18,650
Part time (Home) N/A £795
Full time fees shown are per annum. Part time fees shown are per 10 credits. Please note that fees are reviewed on an annual basis. Fees and the conditions that apply to them shown in the prospectus are correct at the time of going to print. Fees shown on the web are the most up to date but are still subject to change in exceptional circumstances. More information about fees and funding.

*UK Government announcement on tuition fees

Following an announcement in November, the government has confirmed its intention to increase undergraduate tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year.

Subject to final Parliamentary approval (expected in early March 2025), the tuition fee for UK students is increasing to a maximum of £9,535 from 1 August 2025. This change applies to current and new students at the University of Plymouth. The Student Loans Company (SLC) has confirmed loans for tuition fees will be increased accordingly.

Tuition fees for optional placement years

The fee for all undergraduate students completing any part of their placement year in the UK in 2024/2025 is £1,850.
The fee for all undergraduate students completing their whole placement year outside the UK in 2024/2025 is £1,385.
 Learn more about placement year tuition fees

How to apply
All applications for undergraduate courses are made through UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service).
UCAS will ask for the information contained in the box at the top of this course page including the UCAS course code and the institution code.
To apply for this course and for more information about submitting an application including application deadline dates, please visit the UCAS website.
Support is also available to overseas students applying to the University from our International Office via our how to apply webpage or email admissions@plymouth.ac.uk.

Why choose Plymouth?

We've redesigned the way we teach psychology. We have listened to feedback from our students and created a curriculum where the focus is on active learning instead of attending lectures. As well as this hands-on approach there are many aspects to the course that we are immensely proud of.
  • Specialist facilities – Participate in hands-on learning in one of our 22 specialist laboratories.
  • Optional placement year – All of our psychology students can opt to take a voluntary placement year to gain invaluable experience and cultivate professional contacts.
  • Psychology Research Apprenticeship Scheme – Every year around 60-70 first and second-year students volunteer to work with a member of staff as a 'Research Apprentice'. With this informally run scheme, you'll get first-hand experience of carrying out research.
  • Peer-Assisted Learning Scheme (PALS) – Learning alongside other students on your course can give you a greater opportunity to discuss ideas, broaden your knowledge, gain confidence and make friends.

Hands-on learning

We have embedded practical activities throughout the course, so you can put new knowledge into practice and build practical skills for future careers.
We have 22 specialist laboratories which can be booked by students and staff. Labs range from single participant rooms through to labs with a range of networked or standalone computers and social interaction or group participation rooms.

Babylab

The University of Plymouth Babylab works to improve our understanding of how babies develop their amazing abilities, and the problems they might encounter along the way. We are specialised in the study of language development.
Since opening, the Babylab has attracted more than £2m in research grants and has developed solid collaborations with Babylabs in prestigious universities, such as the University of Oxford and the University of Paris.
psychology facilities
psychology facilities
Toddler stacking toys in the University of Plymouth Babylab

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