This core module introduces you to Education Studies. It will encouraged you to see yourself as a researcher, asking questions and testing assumptions about your own experiences of education. We all think we know about schools and education but how much do we really know and how far is our knowledge affected for better or worse by our personal experiences?

For example, what does it mean to be an educated person? The module will introduce you to a range of theories and practices that relate to education, learning development and teaching across a range of educational setting. You will be expected to reflect upon these educational experiences of learning through a number of interactive practical activities involving peer learning and peer support, sharing educational experiences and exploring how and why learning happens in different educational spaces. There will be an emphasis throughout the module on developing appropriate study skills and academic writing practices for study in higher education.

This module will introduce you to a range of different key thinkers in the philosophy of education. The module is only loosely designed and the content will be decided as part of collaborative process in the first session: there is a long list of thinkers we will talk through and a short list will be decided upon. Additionally, the module will build the connection between theory and experience as we use the various theoretical understandings of education to explore personal experiences.

In this module you will learn to think deeply and critically about creativity and its relationship to educational issues. You will enquire into a range of educational concepts, such as, ‘deep learning’, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘creative learning’ and gain knowledge and understanding of creative learning programmes found in schools and other educational settings in the UK and around the world. You will apply ideas you have discovered in this module about creativity to your own learning and explore how they help shape a creative community of learning through your work with others in the module.

This module explores a range of issues in society which impact on education in different ways. We will cover issues such as gender, race, poverty, and disability, and look at the wide range of responses to such issues. This will include an examination of the educational work of places other than schools as they work to respond to social issues impacting educational inequality. Guest speakers are invited in to share their expertise.

This module introduces you to the study of education worldwide. We start by considering some of the theoretical and global contexts for the study of education, including what we mean by the term ‘globalisation’ and some of the global institutions running educational projects. From here we turn our attention to specific case studies of different countries around the world in relation to some of the key issues in international education, such as global goals, international testing, bilingualism, ethnic minorities, and national identity, drawing on our theoretical grounding to help us better understand the issues.

In this module you will explore theories about human development and learning across a range of biological and psychological perspectives drawn from a variety of disciplines such as anthropology, neuroscience and biology. Key theories about learning and development such as Behaviourism, Constructivism, Social Constructivism will also be discussed, with the focus on how they have been studied and observed in practice.

This module is an introduction to carrying out research projects. As well as developing your understanding of key aspects of research in education, this module will also prepare you for your final research project at Level 6. The module will take you through the key stages in designing a piece of research, including conducting a literature review, deciding on appropriate research methods, and considering ethical considerations in research. To this end the module will feature input from a range of different staff members, drawing from the breadth and depth of research experience in the School of Education and Social Work.

This module will require you to organise a work-based experience (for at least 8 weeks) in one educational setting of your choice. You will be prepared for placement by your tutor and supported by them during your time on placement.

The work-based placement experience will be a context in which to examine educational practices and roles. It will provide the context for an introduction to practice-based research. You will gain direct experience of educational practices through your placement and use your e-portfolio to reflect critically on the experiences and issues raised during your placement.

This module will start with an exploration of comparative education and the skills of making comparisons. We then consider different models of globalisation, including world-systems theory and post-colonial theory. We consider issues of international law and agreements, institutional and non-institutional responses to inequality in education, aid and development and cultural variations.

This module is designed to develop your understanding of the education system and its structures in England. It has as its central theme the changing relationship between the state, compulsory education and its users through the relationship between the UK political system and the UK education system. The module analyses UK education policy in the recent past with a particular focus on changes under successive governments and with specific reference to England.

This module offers a critical and challenging introduction to special educational needs in the context of contemporary understandings of inclusion and diversity in education. It will cover topics such as: historical perspectives on inclusive education; social models of disability, and developing inclusive practices in education.

This module explores how curriculum development is not carried out in isolation from other educational activities but is part of an iterative, developmental implementation and review cycle in all educational settings. The module will encourage you to explore aspects of curriculum development, including content, objectives, processes and assessment. You will also review a number of case studies such as the large-scale curricular reform required to implement the National Curriculum for state education in England and Wales, and the history around alternative educational curriculum approaches such as Steiner or Montessori in Early Years.

The practice-based research module builds on the research and academic skills you have already acquired through your work in the related modules at Levels 4 and 5. You might choose a topic, which is related to your career choice, or is a subject that you are especially interested in, or is an area which you have already done some work and in which you would like to develop further. The exact format for your research will depend on the type of study you choose to do. However, most often it will take the form of a small-scale practice-led enquiry, which typically will be based on your placement experiences, or a desk-based critical analysis of a contemporary issue in educational practice/policy arising out of your experiences on placement. Irrespective of the subject-matter and research design that you decide to adopt, you will be expected to provide a critical analysis of the published research in your chosen area, and key theoretical perspectives used in your study.

This module will help you to critically evaluate how and why different education practices and policies develop in the ways they do. Education is highly political and through this module we will examine the politics of decision-making around educational policies and government initiatives. The module will help you to understand the thinking behind these policies and initiatives in addition to discussing who is making the decisions about education, both formally and informally, across all sectors in the UK educational landscape.

From a broad interdisciplinary perspective, this module will explore the ways in which intersecting power relations and changing identity formations around demographic categories impact on and inform educational settings. Demographic categories include gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, class, profession and nationality. These categories will inevitably impact all those affected by the education sector, whether directly or indirectly, such as pupils, students, teachers, lecturers, managers and policy-makers. The importance of education to identify work, institutionally, professionally and personally, will be explored and debated throughout the module.

This module extends your understanding of the function and effects of education through the study of a range of perspectives such as critical theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, Critical Race Theory and feminism. You will examine the relationship between teaching and learning by applying the theoretical perspectives studied. In particular, you will be encouraged to consider how these different perspectives can be integrated in a critical analysis of education in a case study, based in an educational setting of your choice.

This module seeks to stimulate debate about the changing nature of society as it is currently and as might be predicted in the future, and particularly as it affects education. You will explore the different sectors in education and examine how they are responding to contemporary social changes. These changes might include: the changing demands of employment; joblessness and training; working in emergent communities; teaching with digital communication and social media; the political economy; urban questions, and demographic changes, all of which have major implications for education. In particular it will focus on how education itself is changing and likely to change in the future.