UDEDUCFY - BA (Hons) Education (including foundation year)

The initial year of the four-year degree programme (including Foundation Year) is designed for students who wish to enter Higher Education and may have non-traditional qualifications, lower UCAS points or are mature students. It exemplifies the university strategies of inclusive learning, widening participation, the aims of the ESJF and of serving our community, as the majority of our students are local. It is a large programme and forms a significant percentage of recruitment for the school overall, as well as contributing to courses in GSBL.
Students will explore a wide range of social science and current affairs themes, whilst also developing the academic and digital literacies that will be of benefit to them in the following three years of study. The curriculum is structured to be confidence building, varied and inclusive, and reflects the lived experiences of our cohort. They will begin to develop an identity related to their subject choice and career aspirations. In addition, they will work on becoming self-motivated, proactive students, taking responsibility for their own progress and learning.
Teaching and learning is through interactive workshops, practising compassionate pedagogy, that enable students to form strong communities with each other and the teaching staff. Students will have access to varied materials on weblearn, and other learning resources and opportunities tailored to their subject. To support success, the programme runs an extensive ‘assessment care package’ that guides students at all stages through assessments. Each student will have a personal academic tutor and access to a success coach, as well as informal peer support.

The study of Education 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 while there is a growing diversity of educational roles in people-related professions and their associated work settings, for many students the next step will be a move into teaching by attaining Qualified Teacher Status through a PGCE programme.

Drawing upon, inter alia, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, pedagogics, ICT/digital media and cultural studies, the degree seeks through a multidisciplinary appraisal of theory, critical enquiry and reflective engagement with practice. This offers students an interdisciplinary synthesis affording a firm platform for further professional education and personal development.

Education therefore sits squarely at the heart of the mission of the School of Social Professions 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.

The BA Education programme aims to support a range of students whose professional aspirations may 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; and social entrepreneurs

This programme also aims to support students hoping to pursue a route into Primary graduate teacher training with QTS who may need more time to address other entry requirements for PGCE courses. Students are offered additional careers advice and support through our Preparing for PGCE extra-curricular materials and activities. Further support in their professional development and preparation for teacher training is delivered in the module Becoming a Teacher, led by tutors from the Teacher Training ITE department.

The work placement module in the second year of the 3 year degree offers students who may already working in an educational setting (nurseries, school TA roles etc.) the opportunity to use their work placement as a vehicle to focus their assessment, while further developing their professional practice.

in practice.

The initial year provides students with an opportunity to develop both their academic literacies and subject understanding in preparation for further study and/or their chosen career. It aims to enable students to engage critically with a variety of sources, enhance their digital skills, gain research skills and reflect on their own learning. In addition, it aims to build students’ confidence, develop an interest in and identity with their subject area and to feel part of the London Met community.

The level 4-6 degree course aims are:

● To educate students for employment as critical professionals within educational and other cognate settings;
● To encourage students to explore the problematic nature of educational theory, policy and practice with reference to those foundational debates and disciplines that have informed educational discourses;
● To facilitate a meaningful grasp of those knowledges, skills and understandings held and valued by educationists;
● To provide a fund of experience that has been interpreted and rationalised with respect to a set of core competencies that support student entry to a range of professional identities, practices and careers (including Primary Education);
● 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.

By the end of level 3, students will be able to:
1. Critically engage with a broad range of social sciences, subject area and current affairs topics
2. Engage in research in a topic of their choice
3. Communicate effectively in a number of different modes, written, digital and oral
4. Engage with confidence with a variety of written and oral texts
5. Demonstrate digital literacy skills
6. Reflect on learning and feedback to develop independent learning skills
7. Demonstrate confidence, resilience, ambition and creativity and act as inclusive, collaborative and socially responsible practitioners/professionals in their discipline

The following learning outcomes for levels 4-6 incorporate and depend on systematic understanding of the key aspects of the knowledge base of Education, including a coherent and detailed knowledge of some specialist areas.

On successful completion of the degree course students will be able to:

1. Deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within Education;

2. Devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some of which are at the forefront in the study of Education;

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

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);

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;

6. Critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data, to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem;

7. Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences;

8. Exercise initiative and personal responsibility, including decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts;

9. Demonstrate confidence, resilience, ambition and creativity and will act as inclusive, collaborative and socially responsible practitioners and/or professionals in their discipline

https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/subject-benchmark-statements/subject-benchmark-statement-education-studies.pdf?sfvrsn=3ae2cb81_5

The overall strategy at level 3 is for assessments to be motivating, inclusive, intrinsically interesting, confidence building and challenging.
Students will explore social issues through various lenses: sociological, anti-racist, reflective, historical. They will engage in a variety of media and academic texts including researching a topic relating to their degree pathway. They will be encouraged to submit drafts of their portfolio tasks and as a result, have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and identify their strengths and areas for development. Feedback reflects the content of the material studied as well as academic styles of writing.
Assessments are designed with choice and inclusive pedagogy inbuilt. Students have a choice of both topic and mode of assessment, and they will prepare, plan, negotiate and share ideas, working both independently and as part of a team. Emphasis is on process at all times and this is in line with the University AI strategy. A scaffolded approach ensures each aspect of the required task is attempted in stages and students are provided with frequent feedforward, enabling them to build on their skills and increase their confidence.
Transparency of assessment criteria and marks is key. Templates and model answers help students structure and understand tasks. Students are encouraged to take part in peer feedback as well as receiving clear and constructive feedback from tutors. Marks are moderated across all the bands and scrutinised by our external examiner.

At level 4,5 & 6, the strands of learning, assessment, feedback are braided through the course. The course seeks to combine formative and summative assessment tasks constructively, and to make best use of these tasks to offer students a meaningful learning experience, and to foster their personal and professional development. Assessment tasks are synchronised with each other and with learning outcomes, and designed to meet those outcomes in line with QAA standards and wider professional standards. Processes for marking assessments and for moderating marks are clearly articulated and consistently operated by those involved in the assessment process. Feedback is provided in a timely fashion, and formulated so it is useful to students and enhances their learning. Students are guided and supported in making sense of the assessment tasks and the feedback provided, and the best use of that feedback so that their learning becomes salted into their academic sense of self and their intellectual repertoires necessary for professional practice and future career. In that context, feedback is not seen merely as the last word on their coursework, but rather, as a process that enables learning, fosters development, builds confidence and clarifies objectives for the task ahead. These understandings and processes are woven into a personal tutoring system that enables students to discuss specific results and achievements, and to identify where particular challenges lie as well as opportunities to narrate their emergent academic, intellectual and professional selves. Assessment tasks are informed by reflection, consideration of professional practice, and subject-specific and educational scholarship. Coursework tasks include: essays of various genres, reports, presentations, individual and group (research) projects, and a final dissertation.
At level six, students study the Education Studies Dissertation (SS6P86). This module has a taught component and builds on the knowledge, skills, and understanding students started developing at level 5 in Researching Education (SS5021). When the students start learning research skills at level five, they are encouraged to look at their research studies at levels five and six as one extended project. As the research study report they write at level five is based on a pilot study for their dissertation project, they can incorporate aspects of the level five report into their dissertations, without it being flagged up as self-plagiarism. This provision is reflected in the credit rating and the assessment word count of the dissertation module (SS6P86), which is a 60-credit module that requires students to write an 8,000 word research report. This high word count for a 60-credit module is mitigated by students being allowed to incorporate aspects of their pilot studies into their dissertations.

For BA Education, the course offers the opportunity for experiential learning at Level 5 in the form of a short practical work experience in an educational institution or organisation.
Students who already have part time work roles, e.g. in nurseries or as school TA’s, may be able to use their existing workplace as their placement.

N.B. Students are likely to require a DBS certificate, which has to be organised and funded by the student, in order to take up work-based learning placements in the second year of the 3-year course.

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.’

BA Education:
SS4030 Becoming and Educationist: reading, writing and enquiry
SS4021 Knowledge, Culture and Education
SS4020 The School and the City
SS4033 Making Sense of Education
SS5019 Sociology and the Curriculum
SS5021 Researching Education
SS5020 Psychology of Learning
SS5W81 Experiential Learning in Education
SS6P86 Education Studies Dissertation
plus two 30 credit or one 30 credit and two 15 credit of the below option modules:
SS6011 Inclusion, Education and Inequalities

SS6080 Gender and Education
SS6082 Multilingualism & Multiculturalism
SS6012 Educators as Social Pedagogues

At level 3, opportunities for self-reflection and PDP are core to the course, running through all teaching and learning strands including content, class activities, informal and formal tutor and peer feedback, assessment and independent study. Independent study will provide routes to develop and explore individual and degree-related interests. Key areas will include developing personal agency over academic, disciplinary/professional and personal outcomes.

Academic
Students will be encouraged to develop strategies for effective learning, including identifying their own strengths and areas of development, action planning in response to formative feedback, taking responsibility for intrinsic motivation and encouraging personal reflection on academic priorities.

Personal
Students will reflect on their own values and interests, investigate their own identity as an individual, as part of society, and gain confidence in belonging of the academic community.

Disciplinary and professional
Students will start to develop a sense of identity with their subject area, feeding into their academic and professional aspirations. They will receive input from the pathway discipline, including development of digital and employment related skills. There will be integrated opportunities for link up with relevant departments within university e.g. Careers, Subject Librarians, Student Union.

Reflective practice and self-reflection
Students will be introduced to the processes and purposes of reflective learning, including how to write reflectively, applying relevant reflective models and approaches and understanding the purposes of reflective practice, both academically and professionally.

Reflective learning/personal development as core values underpinning effective and professional educational practice are embedded in the course, from Level 4 through to Level 6.

Reflective learning/personal development is highlighted in the following processes and modules:

● Assessment tasks that explicitly ask students to reflect on their learning/learning outcomes, e.g. through the compilation of portfolios/e-portfolios;
● Formal and informal feedback sessions build into modules that enable students to advance their knowledge, understanding and practice, and tutorials that directly brief students on learning aims and outcomes;
● Opportunities for experiential learning and extended placement practice which help students develop and strengthen core competencies;
● Activities built into learning and teaching that support students to forge links between their academic and experiential learning, and their personal development;
● Partnerships with Student Services and external providers that enable students to identify and build an outward-facing professional self for career development and potential employers.

BA Education offers a firm platform upon which graduates can construct careers as educators and educationists whether in school or college teaching or in community-based development and learning.
Flexible progression to QTS, Masters’ level study and research is facilitated by the degree, subject to other necessary entry requirements.
Students aiming for PGCE and QTS on completion of the degree are offered additional careers advice and support through our Preparing for PGCE extracurricular materials and activities. Further support in their professional development and preparation for teacher training is delivered in the module Becoming a Teacher, led by tutors from the Teacher Training ITE department.

After this four-year course you’ll be able to enter a wide range of careers within education, such as local government, charities, youth work and educational management. You’ll also gain a range of transferable skills, such as critical thinking, reasoning and writing that will translate into a variety of careers.

Continuing your studies with us

The School of Social Professions has a wide range of exciting industry-linked programmes available on a full-time and part-time basis in education, health, social and community work. The following courses would be ideal for progression into postgraudate study:

• Education - MA
• Get into teaching with one of our PGCE courses
• Youth and Community Work (with JNC Recognition)- MSc

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

• at least one A level (or a minimum of 32 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC Subsidiary/National/BTEC Extended Diploma)
• English Language GCSE at grade C (grade 4) or above (or equivalent)