Nursing (Child and Mental Health)
Entry requirements
GCSE/National 4/National 5
3 GCSEs at grade C, or grade 4, or above, including English and Maths.
UCAS Tariff
from a minimum of 2 A Levels (or equivalent).
About this course
**Please note that advanced entry is not available on any of our Pre-Registration Nursing Programmes at this time.**
Join our four-year dual qualification NMC degree in Child and Mental Health Nursing. Work with children and young people in acute and community settings and those accessing mental health services. Take the first step towards a career as a nurse with a range of placements that will help you build practice-based skills and knowledge. Study in our dedicated nursing skills labs in Cambridgeshire or Chelmsford and be a part of our supportive nursing community. When you graduate, you’ll be ready to start your career as a dual registered Child and Mental Health Nurse.
Here at ARU, we are dedicated to the continual improvement of healthcare and stand by the values of the NHS Constitution. Our 4 year dual registered degree in both child and mental health will prepare you to become a highly skilled and sought after health professional who’ll be welcomed in both child and mental health settings in hospital and community practice. You’ll undertake both child and mental health specific placement and modules throughout your 4 years, allowing you fully support your patients both mentally and physically. We’ll work with you to help you grow into a competent nurse and concentrate on developing your leadership skills.
We are proud to have been shortlisted for Nurse Education Provider of the Year in both 2019 and 2020 by the Student Nursing Times. This speaks volumes about the quality of our teaching. You’ll soon discover that our faculty is a stimulating place to learn, with excellent facilities and registered, practising tutors who will make sure you’re being taught the latest techniques and give you the support you need to succeed. We make use of technology to support your learning. Good examples are the use of virtual reality scenarios or monitoring your progress with real time assessment.
Our Nursing and Midwifery Council validated course places equal value on clinical practice and theory. It’ll take you from university lectures, team work sessions and skills sessions to clinical placement covering a wide range of ages and settings. You may well find yourself at a GP surgery, attending home health visits or in the middle of a variety of hospital settings, from a general children's ward to paediatric A&E.
Placements last around seven to twelve weeks and will include both acute and community settings. Placement opportunities include: Health Visiting, General Children’s ward, Neonatal Unit, Paediatric Assessment Unit and child and adolescent community settings (including mental health).
You’ll be linked to one of our NHS healthcare trust partners for your placements in hospitals or community settings.
If you study in Cambridge, your placements will be around Cambridgeshire or West Essex.
If you study in Chelmsford, your placements will be around Essex or North East London.
We want to make sure you experience a variety of placements and that you graduate as an effective practitioner. Our placement maps will help you plan your travel before you start on the course.
Teaching on campus usually takes place between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday. On placement, you’ll be expected to work the same shifts as your nursing team. This can mean early, late and night shifts, as well as working weekends and bank holidays. Each year, you’ll get allocated annual leave at set points to support you in balancing your course and relaxation time. You’ll have the chance to share experiences with students from other courses, and to see how the professions work together to provide effective and seamless care.
Modules
Year one, core modules
Essential Knowledge and Skills for Person-centred Care
Essential Nursing Skills and Practice 1
Exploring and Promoting Health and Wellbeing
Medicines Calculations for Safe Practice 1
Essential Nursing Skills and Practice 2
Year two, core modules
Exploring the Values, Theories and Evidence Underpinning Mental Health Assessment and Practice
Developing Mental Health Nursing Practice 1
Therapeutic engagement in mental health nursing
Developing Mental Health Nursing Practice 2
Medicines Calculations for Safe Practice 2
Year three, core modules
Holistic Care for the Developing Child and Young Person with Health Care Needs
Developing Children's Nursing Practice 1
Recognising and Responding to the Deterioration of Children and Young People
Developing Children's Nursing Practice 2
Year four, core modules
Nurses as Future Leaders
Leading and Co-ordinating Care with Confidence
Undergraduate Major Project: Becoming an Independent Practitioner
Medicines Calculations for Safe Practice 3
Assessment methods
To make sure you’re developing the skills and knowledge needed for professional practice, we use a range of assessment methods. These include essays, presentations, exams, observed structured clinical exams, case studies, project work and assessment of practice competencies in the clinical setting. We know feedback is essential for your progress and our lectures take pride in giving you clear guidance on how to improve your expertise.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
Chelmsford Campus
Cambridge Campus
School of Nursing and Midwifery
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Children's nursing
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Mental health nursing
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Children's nursing
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
Mental health nursing
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Children's nursing
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£30k
£31k
£32k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Mental health nursing
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£30k
£31k
£32k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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