MEd Educational Leadership and Management (fully online)

This course is for those who are already Leaders and Managers in an educational context or for those who aspire to take on a leadership role. The course lasts 18 months and covers a wide range of leadership topics, delivered through study days, online lectures, extensive course materials and independent study. Students will engage with the latest research on Educational Leadership and Management and will be able to connect to like-minded peers in the UK and across the world via online delivery.

What is the point of doing a Master’s in Educational Leadership and Management when I have a PGCE or am an experienced teacher?

1. Professionals do not stop learning at any stage in their working lives. Doctors and lawyers, for example, have to have regular refresher courses. In the same way teachers are primarily trained to teach and so moving onto Middle and Senior Leadership positions brings a whole new set of responsibilities and challenges to navigate. This programme will enable you to take on those challenges with confidence.
2. Not only will you learn about recent research in education, but you will also learn how to critically reflect on your own leadership.
3. Having taken the trouble to gain this qualification will show your employer and future employers that you are a serious, professional employee. The course will equip you with the ability to talk about particular areas of leadership with acquired knowledge and experience.
4. You will find the course intellectually stimulating as a whole new area of study will be opened up to you.

Course content

The course is distance-learning with the expectation that you will attend online, four pairs of study days over the course of the 18 months and these will be followed by an online discussion as well as an essay. These study days take place on Thursdays and Fridays mornings (UK time) and so you will need to be able to have time away from work to attend these days as they are an integral part of the course and non-attendance may impact your work.

Every master’s student is allocated a supervisor. You will regularly communicate for example, via Teams, Zoom, email or another online meeting platform with your supervisor at times that are suitable for you both, to support each module. You will also have access to regular online study sessions throughout the course. There is an induction session early on to introduce you to how the course will run, then there are twilight sessions UK time, during the year to support you with each module and with additional sessions to aid with the completion of the dissertation. The majority of these are optional in terms of attendance as we know that many people struggle to be available at certain times. However, all these sessions are recorded and can be watched after the live event. This means that as you progress through the course you end up having access to a library of videos that you can re-visit, to support you to a successful outcome. It is important to understand that you, as a master’s student, will be expected to work independently and to use the guidance provided to complete the required modules.

What will I gain?

• You will acquire a new set of skills. You are required to engage with a wide range of arguments and be prepared to be critical of them, to synthesise arguments and perhaps most importantly to develop your own critical voice.
• A fresh challenge can stop you becoming stale. Once you have been teaching for a while you can easily build up a lot of experience and expertise with the delivery of your work. Whilst it is great to be able to build upon that confidence it can also mean that you can become comfortable. This can mean, although not always, that you can become stale and possibly even out of date with your thinking. Ideas are always changing in Education; new research is always coming into effect and sometimes it is easy to fall behind and not be aware of new ideas. By undertaking a Master’s it will keep you fresh and up to date.
• Research gives you an authoritative voice. As you develop your critical voice it becomes even more possible for you to speak confidently on a range of issues. This can give you a real boost, opening up new career opportunities to you.
• You will connect with people outside of your comfort zone. Engaging with a Master’s programme enables you to connect to a whole new group of people. These can be people we can then network with not only across the country but across the globe.
• You can study something you are genuinely interested in. Lots of people have different areas of interest, problems they want to solve, or challenges they want to face, and these are often a product of the work and experience that you bring to the course. It is a great idea to work to discover more about these particular areas of interest and even to become an expert on that topic. This too might seem indulgent, but the great thing about carrying out research in Education is that there is a good chance that your discoveries can have a positive impact in the workplace.
• It is an investment in yourself. Not necessarily in the monetary sense, it is more about thinking about yourself, the kind of person you are and what you want out of life. Are there things that you want to investigate further? It is about recognising the complexity of our identities in that we are more than our jobs and that we have a lot to offer the world. Spending the time (and money) on taking part in a Master’s programme is worth it if you want to develop yourself and the way that you think.

The course covers the following topics

Module 1 The Leadership Landscape: Role, Responsibilities and Relationships. This module sets the MEd in the broader context of the range of theories that currently exists relating to Educational Leadership and Management. We will consider how this is reflected in different forms of leadership within schools. The course will also look at your role as a reflective practitioner and how this can enhance your understanding of the course.

Module 2 Leadership in Action: Making Changes. This module introduces the concept of change management and its place within educational leadership.  This is linked to the challenges facing schools today and ways in which the educational landscape has changed over the last fifty years.

Module 3 Developing Strategy. The module begins with a focus on different styles of leadership and the effect that this would have on decision-making in schools.  This is then linked to a unit on managing people, whether this is working with staff or with the parental community.

Module 4 Researching Leadership and Management. The focus of this module is the development of the research project in relation to each student’s educational context.  This looks at research topics such as finding your critical voice, exploring research paradigms and methodologies, how data can be analysed and confidence in relation to ethics and validity.

Module 5 Dissertation. This is the culmination of the programme and the production of a 12,000-15,000-word dissertation.  The students will work independently on this whilst also being supported by their supervisor and with the option of attending online webinars.

If you have any questions, please contact us: education@buckingham.ac.uk