Why choose the School of Education and English
A flexible, part-time course with blended learning (face-to-face sessions as well as online support and activities), helping you work around your other commitments.
Designed for current and aspiring education professionals with a particular interest in educational practice.
Focus on your own personal, academic or vocational interest in our optional units.
About the course
This course equips you with the knowledge and skills required to think critically and creatively in order to support the development of your teaching practice. Led by experts, this programme builds on current research in teaching and learning, and offers the opportunity to explore a range of topics. The course is made up of core and optional units, providing you with the flexibility to design a programme which meets your individual needs.
Facilities and specialist equipment
- Teacher Education Centre with realistic mock classrooms supported by advanced ICT resources
- Up-to-the-minute simulation technology
- Multimedia space for webinars and podcasting
- Extensive library with physical learning spaces and online resources to support your studies
Industry links
We have well-established partnerships with more than 500 schools and other associated organisations across our region. This network is extended nationally and internationally through research activity, putting us in a strong position when it comes to understanding national priorities, issues and key developments in educational practice.
Your student experience
The University of Bedfordshire’s Bedford campus is a small, thriving academic community where staff get to know you well and provide individual academic support.
The course covers a wide range of theoretical and practical aspects of education practice, drawing on multidisciplinary research.
Through activities and assessments, you develop analytical and practical skills that support you to progress successfully along your chosen career path.
The course team have extensive experience, are all professionals who understand the sector and contribute to wider knowledge through cutting-edge research.
Develop your analytical and practical skills so you can progress successfully along a management career path.
Study with professionals from schools, local authority organisations, the lifelong-learning sector and universities.
Course Leader - Dr Cathal Butler
Since 2013, I have been the course co-ordinator for our MA Education Pathways. These courses support the continuing development of practicing educators, as well as supporting the academic development of recent graduates, both British and International.
I teach across a range of our postgraduate courses and units, as well as supervising PhD students. I am also link co-ordinator for the MA Education (Leadership) course that is running at a partner institution in Guyana. I also co-ordinate our recently approved MA International Education Courses.
Course Leader - Dr Cathal Butler
Since 2013, I have been the course co-ordinator for our MA Education Pathways. These courses support the continuing development of practicing educators, as well as supporting the academic development of recent graduates, both British and International.
I teach across a range of our postgraduate courses and units, as well as supervising PhD students. I am also link co-ordinator for the MA Education (Leadership) course that is running at a partner institution in Guyana. I also co-ordinate our recently approved MA International Education Courses.
Studying our Education (Practice) MA course will provide you with in-depth knowledge and skills around educational practice to support your development in the classroom. This course gives an open opportunity to select a range of units available across our different pathways, which explore a range of different aspects of education and ultimately impact practice in the classroom. To better understand children and their needs, our unit in Children’s Voice: Researching and Analysing Children’s Lives will allow you to examine children’s lived experiences based on tensions within family, welfare and education policies. This may involve considering how low pay or long working hours of parents could place constraints on family time available to children, and the implications of issues such as this for policy and practice. As an educator, child development is a core part of your learning and practice, and this is where our Early Years Education and Care unit will introduce you to theoretical concepts surrounding young children’s learning.
Another crucial area to your educational practice involves Meeting Diverse Needs, and you will do this by engaging with research literature on how diverse needs can be supported in educational settings to promote inclusion in your professional practice. Aside from teaching, our unit in Exploring Coaching and Mentoring will help you gain a better understanding of your role as a coach or mentor including how to make an effective and positive impact in your work. To add to this, you will also explore key literature and theory around leadership and management within educational contexts in our Educational Leadership in Context unit.
More importantly, you will adopt a reflective approach in our Enhancing Practice in Educational Settings unit that will enable you to identify your strengths and areas for development to be responsive to student needs. It is also important that you are adaptable and able to facilitate change in the workplace, therefore this is where our Leading Change in Education unit will enable you to adopt changing practice in education settings and how to develop positive staff relationships to bring about this change. Finally, you will complete a Dissertation in Education (Practice) in a research area that interests you. To help you with this, our Research Methods in the Workplace unit aims to develop your research skills through a range of activities.
Each unit in this course has its own assessment. Wherever possible the specific focus of assignments is negotiated individually between the unit co-ordinator and the student within the parameters of the unit in order to ensure that the assignment meets your personal and professional needs.
The course provides students with a carefully planned and coherent sequence of learning opportunities that facilitate their development through formative and summative assessments. At this level the expectations in terms of the quality of work produced are high and students will need to take active control of their learning.
At Master's level the expectation is that students are autonomous and confident learners will undertake assessments that are challenging and require mature argument and sustained research and fluent and cogent presentation. You are encouraged in your assessments to draw upon an extensive range of sources to demonstrate a deep theoretical understanding and the ability to apply that to current issues and contexts.
The assessments test the ability to construct a reasoned sustained and coherent argument and to articulate it fluently. Students are required to demonstrate an appropriate level of research of independent argument and to reference in an appropriate way. Through the assessments designed for individual units students practise and reinforce skills in researching evaluating and synthesising materials with a critical eye; quantitative and qualitative data collection and handling together with skills associated with conventional academic tasks.
Unit assessment is based on specified learning outcomes and threshold standards. The unit information forms state clearly the aims objectives and learning outcomes of the unit and delineate the criteria of assessment for each outcome. The unit assessment feedback offers detailed comment to the student on the assessment piece.
The taught stage of the course (stage 1) requires you to pass 120 credits before progressing to stage 2 the 60 credit dissertation. An alternative to this (set out in Course structure 2) is if you already have a PG Certificate (60 credits) e.g. PGCE or SENCO Certificate when you would be able to complete your qualification with a further 2 x 30 credit units and the Applied Research Methods and Project for stage 2 of your study.
Careers
This Master’s qualification will enhance your chances for promotion and employment in other contexts; it supports promotion to senior positions in the field of education. The course is designed to help you explore, study and critique key issues in education as well as identify and justify recommendations for further action.
As a Master’s graduate, therefore, you will have the confidence, knowledge and critical skills to prepare and present a strong application to senior posts in the field of education.
Previous graduates have also undertaken PhD study.
Entry Requirements
Entry Requirements
Fees for this course
UK
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £10,000 per year. You can apply for a loan from the Government to help pay for your tuition fees and living costs. Visit www.gov.uk/postgraduate-loan
Alternatively if you have any questions around fees and funding, please email admission@beds.ac.uk
International
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £16,900
If you have any questions around fees and funding, please email international@beds.ac.uk
Fees for this course
UK
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £10,000 per year. You can apply for a loan from the Government to help pay for your tuition fees and living costs. Visit www.gov.uk/postgraduate-loan
Alternatively if you have any questions around fees and funding, please email admission@beds.ac.uk
International
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £16,900
If you have any questions around fees and funding, please email international@beds.ac.uk
