BA (Hons) Education Studies (Top-up)

Course overview

What can this course lead to?

Designed in direct collaboration with local headteachers, SEND coordinators, and industry experts, this Top-up degree targets critical local skills shortages to prime you for immediate professional success. Our graduates are uniquely prepared for:

Teacher Training Pathways: Progress directly into regional PGCE or Initial Teacher Education (ITE) routes to gain full Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
Specialist Education & Support Vacancies: Step into regional roles, such as specialist SEND practitioners, inclusion managers, or adult support coordinators.
Safeguarding and Multi-Agency Leadership: Take on senior responsibilities in pastoral care, safeguarding frameworks, family support, or community education management.
Postgraduate Study & Policy Research: Leverage your advanced research skills to leap directly into Master’s-level study, advanced research fellowships, or educational policy roles.
Wider Human Services: Apply your high-level communication and data-driven problem-solving to thriving careers within social work, healthcare settings, or educational charities.

Who is it for?

Elevate your existing qualifications into a professional career in education with our standalone BA (Hons) Education Studies Top-up degree. Validated and awarded by Lincoln Bishop University and delivered locally at University Centre Peterborough (in partnership with the Inspire Education Group), this intensive Level 6 programme focuses entirely on the final, transformative stage of your academic journey. By bypassing introductory concepts, this course bridges foundational theory with high-level practice, offering a distinct global and contemporary focus to address the critical challenges facing modern knowledge systems.

The targeted curriculum builds your expertise through leadership, system evaluation, and social justice. Rather than navigating rigid, isolated age tracks, this broad-based framework explores key developments across the full educational landscape. This offers you the unique flexibility to align each academic assignment with your specific career trajectory—whether your passion lies in early years settings, nurseries, schools, colleges, or specialist provisions. You will dissect how decolonisation and marketisation shape local policy, critique traditional assumptions of standardised assessment, and project a confident, informed voice into the education sector.

We believe that professional immersion is the key to creating impactful leaders. Across this programme, you will combine seminar-based study with an active 12-hour weekly workplace role or placement experience. Here, you will design real-world interventions, test advanced pedagogical concepts, and master critical modern competencies, such as ethical AI literacy, custom inclusion practices, and high-level professional resilience, ensuring you graduate as a certified change agent for your community.

What is covered?

This targeted Level 6 programme comprises four core blocks worth 30 credits each, natively integrating digital fluency and global citizenship to ensure your readiness for regional leadership.

Core Modules:

Undergraduate Major Project (30 Credits - Year-Long): Your primary opportunity to lead an independent piece of research. You will design a study, complete a rigorous proposal for an in-course Ethics Board, and execute an evidence-based project that investigates and solves a real-world educational challenge in your setting.
Contemporary Issues (30 Credits - Year-Long): Interrogating fast-moving, high-priority themes at the forefront of education studies, including the ethical parameters of AI, environmental sustainability, marketisation, and decolonisation policy.
Social Justice: Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (30 Credits - Semester 1): Critically analysing the historical, philosophical, and sociological underpinnings of education to justify transformative interventions and promote anti-discriminatory practice.
Creativity in Educational Practice (30 Credits - Semester 2): Critiquing traditional modern knowledge systems, challenging assumptions about standardised testing, and designing innovative, creative curriculum delivery spaces.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Academic Requirements: Typically a 240-credit Level 5 qualification, such as a Foundation Degree in a related field, alongside Level 2 qualifications (GCSE Grade 4/C or above) in English and Mathematics.

Non-Traditional Pathways: We champion widening participation. If you have been out of formal higher education for a while or hold non-traditional Level 5 credentials built through workplace training, we look closely at your drive and individual potential.

Work-Based Placement Requirements: You must be actively working or volunteering in a regulated educational or childcare setting. Full-time students must complete a minimum of 12 hours per week, and part-time students a minimum of 6 hours per week across the 28-week academic block. A valid Enhanced DBS check and a signed workplace agreement are required.

Sam Mackey

“I am the Higher Education Course Leader for Early Years and Education, this includes the Foundation Degree in Early Childhood Studies and Primary Education at University Centre Peterborough. My role within UCP is to lead on the development of curriculum delivery, with a specific focus on the development and delivery of early years and education Higher Education programmes.

I have worked in the Education Sector since 2009 in a variety of roles and as a member of teaching staff I am passionate about my subject and give students opportunities to put theory learnt in the classroom into practice. In my view, one of the key roles of a teacher is to be a person who can inspire others to try out new things, test the boundaries and push outside of their comfort zone in order to make sure all students get the best possible opportunities.

In 2020 I graduated with a Master’s in Education from Lincoln University; which covered social justice, special educational needs and disabilities as well as research in education, I undertook a dissertation study around the topic of compassion and used several examples of trauma informed practice from my research to answer what compassion really was for students and what their experiences of it were really like. Prior to this I undertook a degree with the Open University in Social Sciences, which helped me to understand some of the complexities that people may have in their lives. I focused my research on children and young people and the impact that environment, crime and society have on young people in everyday life.

In order to achieve occupational competency, I started my career managing early years and childcare settings. Effectively running a business and all aspects of this including managing staff members, being responsible for health and safety and dealing with customers, parents and other professionals. In these roles it was important that I was aware of each staff member’s development and what their strengths and areas for further development were, ensuring that a clear plan was designed for each person in order for them to gain skills and knowledge in the areas that were needed in order to carry out their job role.”

Qualifications:

MA Education
BSc (Hons) Social Sciences
Level 5 Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector

Course information

Location

Peterborough

Start Date

September

Fees

Tuition fees are £8,500 per year for full-time students and £4,250 for part-time students, which is lower than many other universities.

Duration

Full-time: 1 year (1 full day a week over two semesters per year).

Part-time: 2 years.

Each semester is 14 weeks.

Validated by

Lincoln Bishop University

Tariff points

N/A

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