About Nursing: Child Nursing in Canterbury Christ Church University

Child nursing is a rewarding career where you can make a real difference to the care and wellbeing of children and their families.

You will develop the knowledge and skills required to become a children’s nurse. On completion, you will be eligible to apply for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

You will explore areas including:

• health promotion
• clinical skills
• person-centred care
• evidence-based practice
• collaborative practice.

Why Child Nursing?

The Child Nursing course will enable you to become a confident, competent, compassionate and sustainable practitioner – one that is able to reflect on their actions, and those of others in order to improve or change practice to benefit the child and/or young person and their families.

This newly designed programme has been developed to meet the professional requirements to enable you to apply for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and become a registered nurse within the child field. You will engage in a series of theoretical and practice modules throughout the programme and there is an equal split between classroom based learning and practice learning. You will have the opportunity to engage in group clinical supervision, with your peers, throughout the programme, which will help you reflect on your learning and develop into a competent and confident Children’s Nurse. 

Throughout the course, you will gain skills to assess and care for children and young people who have a wide variety of healthcare needs and also learn about the importance of family centred care. By the end of the course you will have learnt about a wide range of health issues that children and young people may face and how to deal with them effectively, to intervene quickly or early enough to reduce the chances of future health problems. You will also learn how to work with others to benefit the child/young person and their family.

This course will help you to develop the skills you need to become a leader in the child nursing profession and to be change agents in service improvement.

What will i study?

We are excited to be offering a newly designed Child Nursing programme from September 2019. This new programme has been developed with service providers and service users to deliver contemporary, evidence based nursing education to ensure that our graduates are fit for practice in evolving and dynamic health care services, whether that be in the public, charitable or private sector. Your programme will also furnish you with the skills that you need to become reflective, robust and resilient and will lay the foundations of lifelong learning.

As a Children’s nurse you will require a wide range of both theoretical and clinical knowledge to enable you to practice safely and effectively. In order to achieve this you will undertake five modules per year including a practice module, a clinical supervision module and three child nursing modules. The Child Nursing Programme will run over 3 years full-time and is divided equally between university based learning and practice learning. You will undertake 2300 hours of practice learning throughout the programme, alongside 2300 hours theoretical learning. Subject content will include anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, nursing interventions, cultural awareness, communication skills, interprofessional working, emotional and mental health and wellbeing, policy, law and ethics, professional issues and public health. Within university you will learn alongside your colleagues in a mixture of small groups, lectures and by accessing resources on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). You will also have the opportunity to learn from children/young people and their families who either come into the university as part of the teaching, or you will meet during your practice placements. Real life scenarios will be used within some sessions so you can discuss and share thoughts and learning within a safe and confidential environment. All of the lecturers who facilitate your learning are Children’s Nurses from a variety of different specialty backgrounds within Children’s nursing.

Work Experience

Throughout the three years of the programme, you will be allocated to a wide range of practice placements. You will have the opportunity to work within the hospital setting based in a children’s ward but will also have opportunity to work interprofessionally with departments that also care for children and families, such as Theatres, Out Patients and Special Care Baby Units. Each year you will also have community based placements where you will experience the wide range of services available to children and their families, such as services that go to children’s homes, School Nursing services, Health Visiting or short breaks. In your third year you will have an elective placement. This gives you the opportunity to arrange your own experience to enhance your practice learning. You may, for example, choose to go to a Children’s Hospital in London or elsewhere in the country, or a specialist service, such as Paramedics. You could also choose to arrange an overseas experience.    

Throughout your placement experiences you will be supervised directly or indirectly by a practice and academic assessor who assess your competency to practice. The degree of supervision will depend upon your stage of learning and will allow you time to advance your skills at your own pace, but while maintaining the safety of children and families.

Academic qualification equivalents:

• Successful completion of standard 12 th with 60% average and one further year of study

English language requirements (one of the below):

• IELTS         :        6.0, with no less than 6.0 in Writing and no less than 5.5 in Reading, Speaking and Listening.
• TOEFL        :       Total minimum score of 80, with at least 19 in reading, writing and listening.
• PTE            :        overall score of 50 and no PTE communicative skills score below 42

Canterbury Christ Church University Highlights

Canterbury Christ Church University Tuition fee

Canterbury Christ Church University Living Cost

• The weekly living cost for an international student staying at a residential hall/flat/homestay is 384.50 NZD, 305.75 NZD, and 360 NZD, respectively.
• Application deadline for accommodation: December 1 (February intake); May 1 (June intake).