UDPRIEDU - Primary Education (two-year accelerated degree) BA (Hons)

The course rises to the challenge expressed by applicants and undergraduate students to acquire those skills, knowledge and understanding to move ahead into careers in professional roles within the primary sector and fields with a common interest in the education, well-being and care of children. These careers certainly include qualified teacher, but also inter alia, high level teaching assistant, mentor, playworker, or a broad range of ‘social professions’, with options to go on to further study and research. It combines extended episodes of practical experience in appropriate settings with critical academic study that enables students to situate and interrogate their learning using critical languages drawn from theory, policy, and professional ethical conduct. It also seeks to inspire and enthuse its students as future educators and enable them to meet the demands and reap the rewards found in educating children and young people.

Students will normally take the course over the specified two year period so that it qualifies as accelerated study; however, there are options to modify or decelerate the normal pattern in light of particular circumstances and these would be decided and effected in discussion with student’s academic tutors and suitably qualified others. Further, students who, for any number of reasons find that they are unable to maintain the pace of accelerated study there are options to transfer to the University’s BA Education Studies programme. Staff will work in collaboration with students to construct a programme and course that works and is responsive to the needs and aspirations of those who register for it. This will be through regular formal Course Committee review and other opportunities for effective dialogue and exchange.

The approach to teaching and learning places the learner and her or his needs at the heart of the programme of study, whilst acknowledging the importance of providing: opportunities to acquire a robust body of professionally-oriented knowledge; effective skills to organise, deploy and critique that knowledge; and, critical professional judgment that will facilitate confident decision making. Students are taught using a range of pedagogic modes that include workshops, seminars, lectures, small group, and on-line approaches in a blended approach that matches forms of knowledge to appropriate pedagogic practice. Students are enabled to make full use of the flexible leaning spaces that are emerging across LondonMet’s reinvented Holloway Campus.

The course aims:

• to equip students with the core knowledge and a multidisciplinary understanding of primary education that offers a launch pad for progression to careers in the sector;

• to equip students with vital skills of literacy, numeracy, oracy and enquiry that will enable them to address a range of stakeholder audiences and exercise critical professional judgment with confidence;

• to emphasise the centrality of professionalism and the professional teacher to realising the aims of the primary curriculum, whether in meeting specific learning targets, addressing the specific learning needs and identities of learners, or ensuring an appropriately facilitative school ethos;

• to prepare students for transition to formal programmes of teacher education leading to QTS;

• to ensure that these aims are accomplished within the accelerated timeframe.

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

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

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

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

3. describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced scholarship, in Primary 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 Primary 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 (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;

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. undertake appropriate further training of a professional or equivalent nature

AE4017
AE4018
AE5017
AE6P06
AE4019
AE4020
AE5018
AE5019
AE6008
AE6009
AE6P06

Covers Learning Outcomes LO1-9

Education Studies (2015)

Students are assessed via a range of assessment modes including presentations, reflective diaries, posters, written critical reflections and formal written modes. These seek to enable students to realise their imagination and lead them enthusiastically into areas of professional and personal interest that will sustain their careers as educators and inspire those they work with.

The strategy includes early assessment and timely feedback that serves formatively to develop students understanding, develop their fluency with key skills and lend clarity to direction and goals of their studies. It also meets the particular requirement to facilitate timely programme planning for students following the accelerated degree programme.

Students undertake two extended blocks of work-based learning. These are enframed by the modules:

AE5017 ‘Working with Children and Preparing for Professional Practice’ over the Spring and Summer periods of year one

and

AE6P06 ‘Action Research for Practitioners: placement and project’ over the Autumn, Spring and Summer periods of year two

These modules ask students to spend an extended period in an identified and approved work-place setting with scheduled formal input about appropriate topics, practices, and research methodologies provided at the University.

All modules are core compulsory and completion of the full programme is required to gain the honours degree award. Students would normally be eligible for the Certificate of Higher Education on completion of 120 credits at level 4 and satisfactory fulfilment of the University regulations for award; students would be eligible for the Diploma in Higher Education on completion of 120 credits at level 4 and at 120 credits at level 5 and satisfactory fulfilment of the University regulations for award.

Reflective learning and personal development planning and action are braided through the course. The emphasis on professional development is indissolubly linked to the growth of personal confidence in and through competence in practice. The extended periods of learning in settings and reflections upon it – written, oral and through other forms of representation – offer opportunities to engage with those communities of practice and discourse to which the students are committing themselves.

This two-year degree prepares you to progress in quick time to a PGCE and Qualified Teacher Status, so that you can be a fully-qualified professional classroom teacher in just three years.

Our two-year Primary Education BA is primarily focused on progression to the role of classroom teacher for children aged between three and 12, following subsequent completion of QTS.

This course also supports those wishing to enter para- or alternative professional roles within the primary school, including those offering support for specific needs, mentoring, skills coaching and more. As a full honours degree, it opens up options for postgraduate study and career development across a number of fields concerned with children and their well-being beyond the classroom.

Our graduates pursue careers in:

• Primary teaching [after completing a one-year PGCE]
• Social work [after completion of a two-year MA Social Work]
• Education settings in a variety of roles
• Charities and local community projects
• Further and higher education lecturing
• Government, private and voluntary sectors

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

• a minimum of three A levels with grades BBC (or a minimum of 112 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC National, OCR Diploma or Advanced Diploma)
• GCSE English, Mathematics and Science at grade C or above/grade 4 (or equivalent grade)

The course is designed to equip you to progress to a postgraduate programme offering QTS and therefore the expectation is that you possess the necessary qualifications before commencing the degree. If you don't hold a GCSE grade C or above in both Mathematics and a Science you will need to gain this in order to be considered for a PGCE.

If you graduate from the degree and hold a GCSE grade C or equivalent in English, Mathematics and a Science you will be guaranteed an interview for a PGCE or equivalent route to QTS at London Met.

All applicants must be able to demonstrate written and spoken proficiency in the English language. For more information about English qualifications please see our English language requirements.