MA Educational Leadership
Our MA Educational Leadership masters is a flexible course for anyone interested in critically exploring educational leadership. We offer a full-time route and a part-time route so you can study at a pace that suits you.
Whether you are a current or aspiring leader in education or related field, our course appeals to a variety of backgrounds and professions. You’ll be joining a diverse and thriving community of postgraduate students from the UK and across the world.
Critically analyse the key approaches and debates in the field of educational leadership from UK and global perspectives and develop your understanding of different leadership models.
You will evaluate and learn to think with a range of theoretical frameworks to deepen your critical analysis of leadership. You’ll also use theory to examine and challenge your own beliefs and assumptions. This enables you to reframe how educational leadership is practiced and contribute to new and innovative methods for the future.
We aim to empower you to approach your own research with confidence. You’ll extend your understanding of research techniques to prepare you for completing your own dissertation. You’ll be supported by active researchers in our internationally renowned Educational and Social Research institute (ESRI).
We’ve designed this postgraduate course to allow you to specialise and focus on areas of education that interest you. You can specialise by choosing an option unit based on work by world-class researchers in the Faculty of Education. Your option units may include topics such as literacy and language, mental health, autism, or international perspectives in education.
Whether you take our part-time or full-time course, you will start your MA Educational Leadership with two core units.
In your first unit, you’ll critically explore current key issues in educational leadership. You’ll develop your understanding of, and critically analyse, a wide range of different leadership concepts such as transformational, transformative, democratic, and ethical leadership models.
And in the second core unit, you’ll engage with theoretical frameworks to deepen your analysis of educational leadership. And you’ll explore how theory informs how we interpret and analyse key issues in education today. Exploring these different theoretical lenses will help you think about educational leadership in relation to contemporary challenges of globalisation, power, agency, inequality and diversity, and sustainability.
You’ll join students from other education-based masters courses in a third core unit, Principles and Practice of Educational Research. We’ve designed this unit to develop your understanding of critical issues and methodologies within research and help prepare you for completing your own dissertation.
In the fourth unit, you’ll pursue your own individual interests by choosing one of a series of option units. Our option units are designed and delivered by active researchers from within our internationally renowned Educational and Social Research Institute (ESRI). We’ve designed these option units to reflect our world-class research carried out at the Faculty of Education.
Our taught units are assessed by coursework. This allows you to focus the topic of your work on areas that suit your professional and personal interests.
The final part of your masters is a dissertation. For many students, this is the most challenging part of the course, but also the most interesting and most rewarding.
With guidance from your expert teaching and support team, you’ll design and carry out a research project of your own and complete a written thesis. Some recent examples of topics include:
an interview-based analysis of educational leadership in schools in Iraq
a critical analytical review of UK literacy policies
teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of school readiness
women and leadership in further education in the UK
leadership in American education: race, gender and social justice
You’ll also benefit from our integrated support network of services offered at Manchester Met, as well as our programme-specific support provided by your programme team. You’ll have a personal tutor to accompany you throughout your studies. Your tutor aims to provide tailored support and advice from start to finish.
As a student at Manchester Met, you’ll also be able to access Masterclass. Masterclass is a wide range of optional year-round discussion groups, reading groups, writing workshops and events designed specifically for and with masters students in the Faculty of Education.
Campus Information
Manchester campus
In the city centre, our Manchester Campus is well connected by many types of transport. Where possible, we encourage the use of walking or cycling to access the campus.
Intakes
- Sep
Application Processing Time in Days: 20
Application Process
Minimum English Language Requirements
| English Level Description | IELTS (1.0 -9.0) | TOEFL IBT (0-120) | TOEFL CBT (0-300) | PTE (10-90) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expert | 9 | 120 | 297-300 | 86-90 | |
| Very Good | 8.5 | 115-119 | 280-293 | 83-86 | |
| Very Good | 8 | 110-114 | 270-280 | 79-83 | |
| Good | 7.5 | 102-109 | 253-267 | 73-79 | |
| Good | 7 | 94-101 | 240-253 | 65-73 | |
| Competent | 6.5 | 79-93 | 213-233 | 58-65 | |
| Competent | 6 | 60-78 | 170-210 | 50-58 | |
| Modest | 5.5 | 46-59 | 133-210 | 43-50 | |
| Modest | 5 | 35-45 | 107-133 | 36-43 | |
| Limited | 4 | 32-34 | 97-103 | 30-36 | |
| Extremely Limited | < 4 | < 31 | < 93 | < 30 |
Job Opportunity Potential
We are a great, modern university, in a great global city, here to make an impact on Manchester, our nation and beyond, with a driving ambition to discover and disseminate knowledge, and make higher education accessible and beneficial to all those with the passion and ability to succeed.
Our campus is designed around the student experience, providing our students with high quality teaching in a friendly and supportive environment and with some of the best learning facilities in the UK.
We work closely with our city, with business, the community and our academic peers – locally, nationally and internationally – to be inventive and creative, generate great opportunities, and enable our students, colleagues and everyone whose lives we touch to make an impact.
We offer fantastic opportunities for both academics and those working in professional support roles. Our faculties are vivid communities and experimental workshops, vibrant spaces in which you can contribute, challenge and create. Communities in which you’ll innovate, experiment and grow.
Manchester is more than just a city. It’s a fashionable and exhilarating place to live, a cultural hub championing diversity, an urban centre built on a fascinating history and a world-leading powerhouse in business and academia. All in all, it is an exciting time to join Manchester Metropolitan University.
PSW Opportunity
2 Years PSW is applicable after the course completing (Bachelors level or above)
Admission Requirement / Eligibility Criteria
You must have a first degree, postgraduate diploma or professional qualification recognised as equivalent to an undergraduate UK honours degree of at least a 2:2. Other qualifications or experience may be considered.
Advanced standing
If you’ve completed a PGCE within the last five years, you can normally join the course with advanced standing. This means you’ll put 60 credits from your PGCE towards your masters and complete less units to achieve your MA. Usually, this means you’ll complete just two core units before progressing to your Dissertation.
With the agreement of your programme leader, other relevant and recent level seven qualifications may also permit advanced standing via recognition of prior learning and prior experiential learning (e.g. relevant work experience). Further advice and guidance on this will be available after you enrol.
If you have a National Professional Qualification in Leadership, apply for the learning to be recognised as a contribution towards your MA and reduce the number of taught units you need to complete.
English language
Applicants whose first language is not English must have IELTS with an overall score of 6.5 with no less than 5.5 in any category, or an equivalent accepted English qualification.
For More Information Please Connect Our PSA Counselor
- Course Type: Full Time
- Course Level: Masters/PG Degree
- Duration: 01 Year
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Total Tuition Fee:
16500 GBP
Annual Cost of Living: 9207 GBP
Application Fee: N/A
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