Education and Special Educational Needs

Education and special educational needs is a degree that asks both what education is for and how it can be made to work for everyone, including those for whom conventional schooling has sometimes failed. Education as a discipline explores the personal, social, cultural, and political forces that shape learning: how systems are designed, what values underlie them, how they differ across countries and cultures, and how they might be improved. Special educational needs brings an additional focus on how individuals with a wide range of learning differences, disabilities, and developmental conditions can be supported to reach their potential.

At Liverpool Hope this four-year full-time programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, ensuring that academic study is closely connected to practical experience in educational and care settings. You will explore theories of learning and development, the history and sociology of education, comparative education systems, and the policy frameworks that govern special educational needs provision in England and internationally. Your study of SEN will take you through the range of needs that practitioners encounter, from autism, dyslexia, and attention and communication difficulties to physical and sensory disabilities and social, emotional, and mental health needs, developing both your theoretical understanding and your practical awareness of good inclusive practice.

Graduates of this combination pursue careers in teaching, educational support, special needs coordination, pastoral care, and early years provision. Many go on to teacher training, either in mainstream or specialist settings, or to roles as teaching assistants, learning support assistants, and SENCO advisers. Social work, youth work, child psychology, and advocacy roles in disability organisations are also common career paths.

Postgraduate study in education, special educational needs, educational psychology, or social work is a natural progression for those who wish to specialise further.