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Why choose the School of Education
This course explores a range of contemporary issues in education, in the UK and globally.
Designed to support development across a range of educational professions.
Shape the course to your own career aspirations or interests with a range of optional units.
About the course
This MA fosters evidence-based practice, encouraging you to make direct and meaningful connections between the course and your own experiences and aspirations. It engages you with key and contemporary issues in education and broadens your knowledge of educational ideas and research findings, prompting you to identify and justify recommendations for further action. This places you in the best position to develop your work as a classroom practitioner or leader, usually in schools, the lifelong-learning sector and universities.
Intermediate qualifications available:
- Postgraduate certificate – 60 credits at Master’s level
- Postgraduate diploma – 120 credits at Master’s level
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
Industry links
We have well-established partnerships with more than 500 schools and other associated organisations across the eastern region, a network that puts us ahead when it comes to national priorities, issues and developments in educational practice.
Your student experience
Explore the process of teaching, learning support and/or educational leadership, focusing on your personal, academic and vocational interests.
Engage with global perspectives on different aspects of education, drawing on theory, practice and case studies from a range of contexts.
Learn from academic staff who are either qualified teachers or have extensive experience in wider education; all are professionals who understand the sector.
Benefit from guest speakers, visits and placement opportunities, helping you contextualise your studies and gain experience of a range of settings.
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.
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.
What will you study?
Studying our full-time Education MA course will provide you with in-depth knowledge and skills around education systems and policy for you to work with children and adults in educational contexts. Throughout the course, we engage with contemporary debates around teaching and learning, in the UK, and globally. The course includes a range of core and optional units, to provide opportunities for students to develop and specialise based on their own interests. This is supported by our assessment policy, which provides students options to focus on particular topics of most interest to them within our units. 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.
Similarly, you will investigate issues around social justice in relation to education in our Citizenship and Welfare in the 21st Century unit. Here, you will explore challenges posed towards education and welfare and the questions this raises for human rights, diversity and culture. 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. With the same approach to diversity, you will explore the development of international education systems in our Education and International Development unit to analyse the different factors that influence the educational experiences of children. Finally, you will complete a Dissertation in Education 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
How will you be assessed?
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 their 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 criteria. 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.
Careers
As a Master’s graduate of this course, 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 gone on to take up enhanced roles within their organisation. Some have used the research skills they have gained to engage in future research and undertake PhD or EdD 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 2024/25
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 2024/25
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
