Meet our students and alumni

Discover the educational experiences and career journeys of the students and alumni from our School.

“Knowing that I could complete my degree a year earlier than the traditional route made University feel far more realistic and motivating.”

Abi Grice, BA (Hons) Primary Education Studies (accelerated)

Lisa: Kickstarting my teaching journey with an ARU accelerated degree

"This course has shown me that as mature students we can keep on learning. One of my favourite modules was the sustainability module... My goal now is to become a sustainability lead in a school."

Suniti Sharma, BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies

“This course has been incredible to develop my professional identity. If becoming a teacher is what you want, this course will teach you everything you need to know."

Meg Villaplana-Nuckley, BEd Primary Education with QTS

“We did a whole topic on outdoor play for one of the modules, and that allowed me to change a lot of the outdoor area in my setting.”

Rebecca Dempsey, FdA Early Years and Education

“...as soon as I walked in, saw them, saw how passionate they were about this new course which was starting. That instantly won out over all the other universities I’d looked at.”

Harry Williams, BEd Primary Education with QTS

“The support from my lecturers… and the quality of teaching was just top notch. It felt really good, and made the whole journey really easy.”

Uche Oshevire, MA Education with SEND

“My favourite thing is the opportunities to take part in the different workshops they have on campus… It just opens up really huge opportunities for people.”

Violet Ongele Hindle, BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies

"All the things I learned... go round in my mind when I'm planning for the setting I work in. We've just had our Ofsted inspection and I think it really helped towards that. We were rated Outstanding!"

Lucy Smith, BA (Hons) Montessori Early Childhood Studies

"ARU definitely helped me find my voice and gave me the confidence I needed to pursue other opportunities."

Mitzi Harris, BA (Hons) Early Childhood Studies

"I just wanted to learn as much as I could to support my daughter. Then obviously it then spread out to not just her, what about all the others?"

Kate Larsson, BA (Hons) Montessori Early Childhood Studies

"I wanted to be a part of children’s learning and inspire young children to write and be authors themselves - that always gave me such joy."

Emma Speller, BEd (Hons) Primary Education & Head Teacher, Heybridge Primary School