Subject overview

Taught degrees

Masters-level degrees in education and teaching are designed to meet the needs of professionals in teaching, management, and education and development. We aim to provide degrees that:

• are grounded in research

• recognise and build upon your prior knowledgeand experience

• develop professionally relevant knowledge, skills and understanding

• enable the acquisition of further qualifications that enhance your career prospects.

Some degrees are offered on a part-time basis, combining attendance in the evenings with occasional day schools. Assessment is through coursework assignments to help you acquire greater confidence, enhanced capabilities and different ways of thinking. We consider applications from non-graduates who can demonstrate that they are sufficiently prepared for, and able to benefit from, our degrees.

Research centres

In addition to interdisciplinary research with the Department of Social Work and Social Care, we host three research centres that provide the
intellectual bases for our research, consultancy and teaching activity:

• The Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) provides a platform for the growing field of research into Higher Education with a particular focus on the themes of identity, transition and assessment. Recent research has addressed race and equality issues in UK Higher Education, widening participation in Higher Education in low-income countries, gender and Higher Education, disability and Higher Education, doctoral pedagogy, transitions from vocational and further education, and postdoctoral transitions.

• The Centre for Inquiry and Research in Cognition, Learning and Teaching (CIRCLETS) examines the nature of learning and teaching. Current research includes teacher education, mathematics and science education, formative assessment, teachers’ professional learning, raising aspirations of disadvantaged students, children’s rights and student voice.

• The Centre for International Education (CIE) has an international reputation for its work on educational development, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Current research includes teacher education in sub-Saharan Africa, access to education in low-income countries, gender and development, education and conflict, sustainable financing of secondary education, aid and education development.

Programme outline

This new professionally oriented degree embeds the PGCE as a professional qualification and allows you to focus on the pedagogy of your curriculum subject or phase specialism up to Masters level. As a part-time degree, it is designed to support teachers during their early professional development or to enrich the professional knowledge of established teachers while they work and study.

Initial modules match those of the PGCE. Subsequent modules offer you the opportunity to reflect on your professional practice as a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT), mentor or established teacher and begin to consider how classroom-based research can enhance your teaching and professional responsibilities. The degree culminates with a self-selected dissertation.

Teaching combines reflection on practice, enhancement of pedagogy and research into teaching and learning. Modules are delivered through a choice of evening or weekend seminars, self-directed study, tutorials and school support visits. A dedicated virtual learning environment allows you to study at a distance and communicate with other teachers.

Timetable

The timing of sessions is flexibly negotiated to recognise professional commitments. For most students, the MEd will take an average of three years to complete. The Sussex PGCE constitutes the first year of the MEd, with the remaining modules taken over one or two years.

Assessment

Work is assessed through a variety of methods including directed tasks, presentations, professional conversations, written assignments and dissertations.

Academic awards

We award an MEd for gaining 180 credits. This is through successful completion of four 30-credit modules and one 60-credit final dissertation. Our current PGCE accounts for the first 90 credits. We also award a Postgraduate Diploma for 120 credits, gained through successful completion of four 30-credit modules; and a Postgraduate Certificate for 60 credits, gained through successful completion of two 30-credit modules.

Entry requirements

UK entrance requirements

A first- or second-class undergraduate honours degree or equivalent qualification. This professionally focused, practice-based course is for active teachers working in the UK only.

Overseas entrance requirements

Please refer to column B on the Overseas qualifications.

If you have any questions about your qualifications after consulting our overseas qualifications table, contact the University.
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk

Additional admissions information

For students who have not completed a PGCE (at Masters level), we also offer an entry route via Accreditation of Prior Learning. Applicants who hold a Masters-level PGCE from another UK university may be able to begin the course with advanced standing.

Related programmes

• Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation MA
• Childhood and Youth Studies MA
• English Language Teaching MA
• Environment, Development and Policy MA
• Gender and Development MA
• Human Rights MA
• Media Practice for Development and Social Change MA
• Migration Studies MA
• Social Development MA

Fees and funding

Fees

Home UK/EU students: £5,500¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £5,500²
Overseas students: £13,000³

¹ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
² The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
³ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.

Funding

The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.

Faculty interests

The research interests and areas of supervisory expertise of our faculty are listed below. For more information about the research conducted in the Department of Education, including information about the Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER), Centre for Inquiry and Research in Cognition, Learning and Teaching (CIRCLETS) and Centre for International Education (CIE), visit the Department of Education.  

Childhood and youth studies

Professor Robin Banerjee Social and emotional development of pupils, self-conscious cognition and emotion, self-presentational behaviour.

Dr Janet Boddy Parents and families, parent and child health and well-being, parenting and family support, children in or at the edges of care, social pedagogy, cross-national research.

Professor Suzy Braye Social work practice and the law, policy implementation and professional practice, community care provision. 

Professor PennyJane Burke Widening access to and participation in Higher Education; critical and feminist pedagogies; gender and identity formations; challenging inequalities in higher education; participatory methodologies.

Dr Rachel Burr Social work, child rights, international aid, international social work, ethnographic-based research methods, Vietnam. 

Dr Anne-Meike Fechter Indonesia, South East Asia; corporate expatriates, transnationalism, development practitioners.

Cath Holmström Admissions and selection for social work education, experiences of younger students on qualifying social work courses. 

Barry Luckock Social policy and social work with children, social work practice and education, adoption, fostering and permanency planning. 

Dr Tish Marrable Children with ‘additional needs’, interprofessional working and professional supervision in integrated teams. 

Professor Rachel Thomson Childhood and youth studies, young people’s transitions to adulthood, sexuality and sex education.

Dr Jo Westbrook Learning to read, comprehension, wider reading, teacher education in the UK and developing countries, action research.

Dr Benjamin Zeitlyn Access to education, dropout, development, migration, transnationalism, childhoods, ethnic minorities, Islam.

Initial teacher education

Dr Andrew Chandler-Grevatt Science education: teaching and learning, progression of key concepts in science.

Duncan Mackrill Music education, ePortfolios, technology in music education, transition, spirituality in music education.

Dr John Parry Education for sustainable development, role of ICT within citizenship, experiential learning, special educational needs.

Robert Rosenthal Development of professional learning communities, school improvement, the role of trainees in developing in-school research culture, Geography in the school curriculum.

Simon Thompson Teachers’ professional knowledge, Initial Teacher Education in the UK, history of education.

Dr Jo Westbrook Learning to read, comprehension, wider reading, teacher education in the UK and developing countries, action research. 

International education and development

Dr Kwame Akyeampong Global, regional and national analysis of teacher education and impact on learning, curriculum and assessment reforms, impact evaluation of education interventions and programmes in low-income countries.

Professor PennyJane Burke Widening access to and participation in Higher Education; critical and feminist pedagogies; gender and identity formations; challenging inequalities in higher education; participatory methodologies.

Dr Mairead Dunne Sociological education studies of quality, equity and identity in the UK and low-income countries, curriculum practices.

Dr Naureen Durrani Teacher education, curriculum and textbooks, mathematics education, schooling and identity construction and South Asia.

Professor Valerie Hey Feminist theory, postmodern methodologies, ethnography, identity, affects, social difference, gender.

Professor Keith Lewin Educational planning, economics and finance of education, access and equity in education and development, teacher education, science and technology education policy in developing countries, educational aid and project evaluation.

Professor Colleen McLaughlin Head of the Department of Education. Action and practitioner research; educational reform; vulnerable children, counselling and care; sexuality education, including HIV/AIDS; school-university partnerships for reform and research.

Professor Louise Morley Sociology of Higher Education, national and international Higher Education policy, widening participation, identity.

Dr Mario Novelli Education and conflict, global governance of education, education and globalisation, foreign aid and education. 

Dr Ricardo Sabates Education and social outcomes, links between education and health, education and crime, adult education.

Dr Yusuf Sayed Education assessment and rights, quality, education governance and leadership, education financing, international aid.

Dr Jo Westbrook Learning to read, comprehension, wider reading, teacher education in the UK and developing countries, action research. 

Dr Benjamin Zeitlyn Access to education, dropout, development, migration, transnationalism, childhoods, ethnic minorities, Islam.

Teaching and learning in UK schools and related education contexts

Dr Sarah Aynsley 14-19 education and training, transition from further to Higher Education, qualitative approaches and practitioner research.

Dr Louise Gazeley Social and educational (dis)advantage, education policy, exclusion from school, teacher education.

Professor Valerie Hey Feminist theory, postmodern methodologies, ethnography, identity, affects, social difference, gender.

Professor Colleen McLaughlin Head of the Department of Education. Action and practitioner research; educational reform; vulnerable children, counselling and care; sexuality education, including HIV/AIDS; school-university partnerships for reform and research.

Professor Louise Morley Sociology of Higher Education, national and international Higher Education policy, widening participation, identity.

Dr John Pryor Educational ethnography, international and intercultural education, identity and equity, pedagogy and formative assessment.

Dr Julia Sutherland The use of collaborative talk to develop secondary pupils’ higher cognitive thinking.

Dr Jo Westbrook Learning to read, comprehension, wider reading, teacher education in the UK and developing countries, action research. 

 

 

 

 

 

Careers and profiles

The MEd can help teachers progress to a wide range of careers in education or support promotion within the teaching profession.

School and contacts