Childcare and Early Education

With huge demand in Scotland for qualified early learning and childcare workers, there has never been a better time to turn your dream of working with children into a reality.

Whether you want to work as an Early Years Practitioner, Early Years Support Worker, or Pupil Support Assistant, you will get to use the knowledge and skills learned on your college course to change the world, one little person at a time!

View all courses How to apply

Why choose Childcare and Early Education

Working with young children and helping them learn essential skills for life is very rewarding and worthwhile. Our courses combine theory and practical work experience, helping you develop an awareness and understanding of all aspects of children’s growth and development from birth.

Our wide range of courses will provide you with the transferable skills and practical work experience you need to advance in a career in early learning and childcare. And for those already working within this sector, our flexible work-based and part-time study options mean you can fit studying around work and family commitments. 

Our courses can lead to careers as an Early Years Manager, Lead Early Years Practitioner, Childcare Assistant and more!

What we offer

  • Early Learning and Childcare
  • Childhood Practice
  • Childhood Studies
  • Working with Communities
  • Introduction to Care Practice
  • Additional Support Needs

Progress to a degree

Did you know that an HNC or HND qualification is the equivalent of first year (HNC) or second year (HND) of a degree at university?

So depending on the subject studied, successfully completing an HNC or HND at Fife College could mean that you have the opportunity to progress on to Year 2 or 3 of a related degree course.

For example, the following route to a degree at Fife College is currently available to students of HNC: Childhood Practice:

Year 1: HNC: Childhood Practice    

Year 2: HND: Childhood Practice 

Year 3/4: BA (Hons): Childhood Studies

Studying at Fife College can be a cost-effective, local alternative route to a degree, in the same amount of time as studying at university!

Find out more about degree pathways.

Exception message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.<br /><br />Stack trace:    at Umbraco.Cms.Core.Models.PublishedContent.PublishedContentWrapped.GetProperty(String alias)
   at Umbraco.Extensions.PublishedContentExtensions.Value[T](IPublishedContent content, IPublishedValueFallback publishedValueFallback, String alias, String culture, String segment, Fallback fallback, T defaultValue)
   at Umbraco.Cms.Web.Common.PublishedModels.PageDetails.PageTitleOrName(PageDetails pageDetails) in C:\Clients\Bright Signals\FifeCollege\FifeCollege.Web\umbraco\models\extended\PageDetails.extended.cs:line 20
   at AspNetCore.Views_Partials_Blocklist_cardCarousel.ExecuteAsync() in /home/site/wwwroot/Views/Partials/Blocklist/cardCarousel.cshtml:line 106
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.RazorView.RenderPageCoreAsync(IRazorPage page, ViewContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.RazorView.RenderPageAsync(IRazorPage page, ViewContext context, Boolean invokeViewStarts)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.RazorView.RenderAsync(ViewContext context)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures.HtmlHelper.RenderPartialCoreAsync(String partialViewName, Object model, ViewDataDictionary viewData, TextWriter writer)
   at Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures.HtmlHelper.PartialAsync(String partialViewName, Object model, ViewDataDictionary viewData)
   at AspNetCore.Views_Partials_BlockList_Default.ExecuteAsync() in /home/site/wwwroot/Views/Partials/BlockList/Default.cshtml:line 16<br /><br />

Kirsten Paterson

BA: Childhood Practice

“The lecturers have been very inclusive and taken my opinions and views on board, which has been fantastic."

Read more

Latest news from the department

View our courses

Want to know more?