UDEDUSTU - BA Education Studies

Education Studies concerns itself with the preparation of informed, confident and responsible professionals, equipped with the knowledge, skills, understanding and critical instincts to take on the challenges of working in this vital, challenging and, frequently, fluid area of public life. This course has been designed with the recognition that for many students, the next step will be a move into teaching by attaining Qualified Teacher Status; however, there is a growing diversity of educational roles in people-related professions and their associated work settings. We recognise this through a commitment to the development of educators, broadly conceived, and as a complement to those pursuing QTS, we seek to support students whose professional aspirations require a less formally institutional and more contextualised deployment of what could broadly be described as social pedagogies, e.g. youth, community and social workers; community educators; PCSOs and local wardens; learning mentors; counsellors and trainers; social entrepreneurs. Drawing upon, inter alia, history, philosophy, sociology, pedagogics, ICT/digital media and cultural studies, the degree seeks through a multidisciplinary appraisal of theory, critical enquiry and reflective engagement with practice to offer students an interdisciplinary synthesis affording a firm platform for further professional education and personal development. Education Studies therefore sits squarely at the heart of the mission of the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities and has the capacity to be emblematic for the University’s aspiration to transform the lives, meet the needs and build the careers not only of its students but all those who will, ultimately, benefit from enhanced professionalism in practice.

BA Education Studies aims:

• To educate students for employment as critical professionals within educational and other cognate settings;
• To encourage students to explore policy, practice and the construction of knowledge institutions with reference to those foundational debates and disciplines that have informed educational discourses;
• To facilitate a meaningful grasp of those knowledges, skills and understanding held and valued by educationists, using the University’s particular social, economic and environmental location within a global city as stimulus and challenge;
• To provide a fund of experience that has been interpreted and rationalised with respect to a set of core competences that support student entry to a range of professional identities, practices and careers;
• To provide a formative link between students’ experience of education prior to HE and graduate professional realities beyond;
• To offer a foundation for post-graduate scholarship;
• To fulfil the aspirations and hopes of our students;

To offer a globally attuned degree that has portability.

The following learning outcomes incorporate and depend on systematic understanding of the key aspects of the knowledge base of Education Studies, including a coherent and detailed knowledge of some specialist areas in depth.

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within Education Studies;

• devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of Education Studies;

• describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced scholarship, in Education Studies, recognising the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge;

• manage their own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to Education Studies);

• apply the methods and techniques that they have learned to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects;

• critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem;

• communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences;

• exercise initiative and personal responsibility, including decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts;

• undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature.

1. deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within Education Studies:

• Making Sense of Education (SS4033) (I)
• Education and Encounter in the Global City (SS4032) (I)
• Culture, Curriculum and Technics (SS4031) (I)
• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (IP)
• Knowledge, Ideologies and Curricula (SS5030) (P)
• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (IPA)
• Social Pedagogies and the Public Intellectual (SS6031) (PA)
• Childhood, Youth and Education (SS6030) (PA)

2. devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront of Education Studies:

• Education and Encounter in the Global City (SS4032) (IP)
• Culture, Curriculum and Technics (SS4031) (I)
• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (A)
• Social Pedagogies and the Public Intellectual (SS6031) (P)
• Childhood, Youth and Education (SS6030) (P)

• Children’s Literature in Multicultural Classrooms (SS5071) (IP)
• Peer Mentoring in Practice (SS5073) (IP)
• Experiments in Radical Education (SS6070) (I)
• Inclusion and Meeting Special Educational Needs (SS6071) (IP)
• Sport, Education and Society (SS6073) (IA)
• Philosophy, Enlightenment and Education (SS6072) (IA)

3. describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced scholarship, in Education Studies, recognising the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge:

• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (IP)
• Knowledge, Ideologies and Curricula (SS5030) (P)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (IPA)
• Social Pedagogies and the Public Intellectual (SS6031) (P)
• Childhood, Youth and Education (SS6030) (P)

4. manage their own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to Education Studies):

• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (IPA)

5. apply the methods and techniques that they have learned to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects:

• Education and Encounter in the Global City (SS4032) (IP)
• Culture, Curriculum and Technics (SS4031) (IP)
• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (P)
• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (IPA)

6. critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem:

• Making Sense of Education (SS4033) (I)
• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice (SS5031) (P)
• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (IPA)

7. communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences:

• Culture, Curriculum and Technics (SS4031) (P)
• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (IP)
• Knowledge, Ideologies and Curricula (SS5030) (P)
• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (P)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (PA)
• Peer Mentoring in Practice (SS5073) (IP)

8. exercise initiative and personal responsibility, including decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts:

• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (P)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (PA)

9. undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature:

• Becoming an Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry (SS4030) (I)

• Knowledge, Ideologies and Curricula (SS5030) (I)

• Working With Children and Young People (SS5032) (IP)
• Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P32) (P)
• Social Pedagogies and the Public Intellectual (SS6031) (P)
• Childhood, Youth and Education (SS6030) (P)

• Becoming a Teacher (SS5K70) (IP)
• Multilingualism and Learning Languages (SS5K72) (I)
• Peer Mentoring in Practice (SS5073) (IP)
• Inclusion and Meeting Special Educational Needs (SS6071) (I)
• Sport, Education and Society (SS6073) (I)

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Pages/Subject-benchmark-statement-Education-studies.aspx

The four strands of learning, assessment, feedback and credentialing are braided through the course. Assessment must be synchronised with learning outcomes and meet to the identification and verification of those outcomes. Feedback should be timely, formative and useful to students and they should be guided and supported in making sense and the best use of that feedback, so that their learning becomes salted into their academic sense of self and their intellectual repertoires. Credentialing should not be seen merely as the last word on their award, but rather, when we are awarding marks we are offering students a staged credentialing that should build confidence and clarify objectives for the task ahead. It is vital, however, that these processes are woven into a personal tutoring system that enables students to discuss specific results and achievements and identify where particular challenges lie as well as narrate their emergent academic, intellectual and professional selves. The course seeks to combine formative and summative elements constructively and to make best use of Enhancement Weeks to offer students detailed and meaningful feedback.

The course team is committed to Coursework as the means for assessment throughout. We recognise that this benefits and is welcomed by the majority of the students we recruit. However, we also recognise that there are challenges associated with coursework and students’ attempts to circumvent the challenges that appropriate academic modes of study present.

A scheduled and mandatory 30 hour period of work placement is built into level 5 distributed over day-length blocks. These are linked to the module Working With Children and Young People; and will require students to fulfil those competencies identified in their e-portfolio that pertain to reflective practice in professional contexts and its interpretation through knowledge, skills and understandings developed across the whole course. Normally, students will source their own placements and these must be approved prior to commencement by members of the course team. There is provision in the teaching hours for staff to sample visit placements and respond to challenges that may arise. Students will continue with a scheduled programme of periodic “taught” sessions over the course of their placements so as to facilitate peer reflection, learning and reference with respect to their e-portfolio competencies.

University Regulation 3.1.5 specifies that:

‘All undergraduate courses shall be based on a teaching year comprising 30 weeks of formal scheduled teaching augmented, where appropriate, by a summer studies period.’

For the purposes of the level-4 January entry this will read:

‘All undergraduate courses shall be based on a teaching year comprising 24 weeks of formal scheduled teaching augmented, where appropriate, by a summer studies period.’

SS4033 Making Sense of Education

SS4032 Education and Encounter in the Global City

SS4031 Culture, Curriculum and Technics

SS4030 Becoming and Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry

SS5031 Qualitative Educational Research in Theory and Practice

SS5030 Knowledge, Ideologies and Curricula

SS5032 Working With Children and Young People

SS6P32 Education Studies Dissertation

SS6031 Social Pedagogies and the Public Intellectual

SS6030 Childhood, Youth and Education

The Education Studies BA equips you with skills, knowledge and understanding to take on socially responsible roles as a critical professional in a range of settings, including primary teaching, youth and community work, and community education, support and development.

This degree takes you one step closer to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) for primary teaching gained through a subsequent application for an Early Years Teaching PGCE or Primary PGCE.

Graduates not entering teaching have found employment in careers and guidance, arts management, educational research by PhD and as academic colleagues at London Met and other institutions.

In addition to the University's standard entry requirements, you should have:

• a minimum of grades BBC in three A levels (or a minimum of 112 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification)
• GCSE English at grade C (grade 4 from 2017) or above (or equivalent)

Applications are welcome from mature students who have passed appropriate Access or other preparatory courses or have appropriate work experience.

We welcome applications from mature students who wish to develop career options related to education, teaching or community-based action and we can offer accreditation for prior experience/education.

If you don’t have traditional qualifications or can’t meet the entry requirements for this undergraduate degree, you may still be able to gain entry by completing the Education Studies Extended Degree (including Foundation Year) BA (Hons).

All applicants must be able to demonstrate proficiency in the English language. Applicants who require a Tier 4 student visa may need to provide a Secure English Language Test (SELT) such as Academic IELTS. For more information about English qualifications please see our English language requirements.