Program Overview

You’ll explore education from many theoretical and ideological perspectives in your core modules. This in-depth knowledge of the education industry, combined with your specialist subject knowledge, gives you that all-important edge when you embark on your professional education career.

Secondary Education

A warm welcome to Education Secondary at Bath Spa University

Education Secondary is taken as a combined honours award in education studies. It is ideal if you have the ambition and prerequisites (see entry requirements) to become a secondary school teacher.

Education Secondary develops your knowledge, critical understanding and skills needed to explore education in a variety of ways and become change makers of the future. It enables you to appreciate what education is for, how it is constructed and how it succeeds or fails in its aims. As such, it is not ‘teacher training’ or a ‘theory.’ It is a course that helps you understand education and schooling from a variety of viewpoints informed by theory, practice and research. It will help you understand your place in teaching and give you an excellent preparation to embark on one of our post-graduate teacher training courses

The programme places you in secondary classrooms in each year of your degree. It also offers you placement in other educational contexts, including opportunities for international visits and study abroad. Education Secondary is combined with your other chosen academic subject e.g. biology. At the end of the programme you have the option to continue onto our Secondary PGCE course in your subject specialism; Primary PGCE or to apply for alternative routes into teaching.

We will offer you personalized academic support. Each year you will have an academic tutor who will help you identify your academic strengths and how to build on these. In addition, we work closely with our Careers and Employability team who offer support and advice about future careers opportunities and the application processes for initial teacher training.

You can also take this programme as a 'sandwich' degree, studied over 4 years.  This includes a Professional Placement Year module, taken in the education sector. The placement year is usually taken after you have completed year two of your degree. During this time you will be able to apply knowledge gained during your studies in a work environment.

Drama

BA Honours Drama is designed as a liberal arts programme which engages with creativity, culture and enterprise, and which seeks to bring into contact academic and industry relationships. It includes collaborations with the subject areas English, Creative Writing, Music and Theatre Production and is underpinned by the themes of collaboration, digital literacy, creativity, employability, research and professional practice.

The focus of the programme is on

• The  practical and critical exploration of drama and its place in the contemporary world;
• The effects and benefits of bringing into contact academic, professional and community discourses through partnerships and outward facing work.
• Collaboration with local theatres, theatre companies, arts venues, and educational and cultural institutions in Bath, Bristol and beyond;
• Working with industry professionals, writers, actors, directors and theatre practitioners from the fields of experimental, educational, professional and community-based theatre and performance; The effects and benefits of collaboration between drama and other academic disciplines.

The programme structure locates practice within a framework of ideas, histories and critical concepts and allows you to strategically acquire knowledge, skills and understanding through active participation in processes of research, performance, reflection and evaluation. We offer you strands of study in ensemble performance and performance analysis that include modules in performance skills and performance making. We also offer optional modules in areas such as performance and media, writing for performance, Shakespeare, acting and directing, and theatre for social change.

For those of you who wish to specialise in-depth in a particular area of study, we offer the option of two bespoke pathways: Writing for Performance, and Musical Theatre. The Drama degree thus allows you to choose between a programme with a clear and specialised trajectory, or a programme that provides you with a more open and varied study experience.