Contemporary Craft and Special Educational Needs

Contemporary Craft and Special Educational Needs is an unusual combination that brings together two fields united by a concern for human potential, creativity, and inclusion. Contemporary craft is a discipline focused on hands-on making and design, exploring how traditional craft skills can be reinvented for contemporary purposes and how the process of making is itself a form of enquiry and expression. Special educational needs (SEN) is the study of how to support learners who face additional barriers to learning, drawing on education theory, psychology, and inclusive practice.

At Liverpool Hope University, this four-year full-time programme includes a sandwich placement year, a year abroad, and opportunities for work placements, making it one of the most experientially rich programmes available in either discipline. The contemporary craft strand builds a supportive community of emerging makers and designers, giving you the space to develop your creative practice through specialised projects and materials-based exploration. The special educational needs strand equips you with the theoretical and practical knowledge to understand and support learners with a wide range of needs, from specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia to autism, physical disabilities, and complex learning needs.

Together, the two strands open a particularly distinctive set of professional possibilities: art and craft therapies, inclusive arts education, specialist teaching, and community arts work are all areas where this combination is directly relevant.

Graduates can pursue careers in specialist education settings, as teaching assistants or specialist teachers with SEN qualifications, in therapeutic arts roles, in community arts organisations, as professional makers and designers, or in heritage and craft education. The placement and year abroad components develop your adaptability and professional network considerably. Postgraduate study in education, inclusive education, art therapy, or craft and design is a natural route for those who wish to develop their expertise in either or both directions.