Middlesex University

The Department of Education has four Directorates each led by a Director of Programmes. It has the equivalent of around 45 full-time employees plus part-time staff and administrative support. Courses include Primary and Early Years Initial Teacher Training (ITT), 3-year undergraduate and 1-year postgraduate. We have just been allocated a further 20 PG places from this September.

Secondary ITT has 13 subject strands including Maths and Science with two subject enhancement courses, Maths and Chemistry, being run in the summer to aid recruitment. Maths and Science regularly recruit to a target of 25 students per year and have in the past over-recruited.

Professional Development runs a variety of Master’s degrees in education including an ED Doc. Some are distance delivered, others taught in partner schools and local authorities with a strong online component. There is a generic element across the degrees which makes them able to focus on school needs. This school-based work has increased dramatically this year. The PPD programme has been allotted 500 places by the TDA. An MA in Education, Leadership, Management and Change has proved a successful draw for overseas students and is about to be taught in our Dubai campus, and possibly Kenya.

We also work in conjunction with schools to provide CPD bespoke programmes and are working on a Foundation Degree (FdA) for Supporting Learning with a top up to BA Hons. This will be offered to schools and further education colleges to support non-teaching staff. Potentially this looks likely to be very popular as market research is encouraging. We are also working to support schools in gaining Trust Status.

Education Studies and Early Childhood runs traditional BAs in these subject areas, in some cases combined with a national curriculum subject. An FdA in Childhood Studies has been highly successful since 2003, the majority of students progressing onto the BA top up. We have now put this out for delivery in four partner colleges. The BA in Early Childhood is also on offer in Singapore and other countries have expressed interest. This area also runs the four pathways to Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) and also the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL), the latter in conjunction with London Metropolitan University.

Partnerships
We have lively and useful partnerships with many local schools (over 250 in the secondary area) and run a partnership forum for both primary and secondary areas where heads meet university staff for updates on training requirements and suggestions for changes to programmes. These groups meet twice a year. This partnership work extends from TAs and school support-staff training to ITT, Masters work and bespoke course endorsement and planning. Our area of involvement stretches from north London into the home counties.

We are a member of the London Providers Group of Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) where successful attempts have been made to harmonise approaches to ITT in the London areas such as school induction dates and mentoring. We use the LP mentoring programme and deliver it in schools to our mentors. To aid this process we have two members of staff whose job it is to liaise with schools, search out new placements and support mentors in addition to the school link tutor.

Research and Enterprise
Staff are engaged in individual research and give conference papers. We have a small number of Education MPhil/Phd students.