MA Educational Leadership
Course Overview
Education is a highly complex and increasingly competitive sector. Schools, colleges, universities and other training organisations are under constant pressure to achieve greater successes with fewer resources. The need for inspiring, effective and knowledgeable leaders is greater than ever and a multitude of opportunities are available to appropriately qualified individuals.Aimed at existing education professionals, this course offers in-depth knowledge and understanding of the principles and theories that underpin educational leadership, as well as an enhanced and critical awareness of current issues facing educational leaders.
We offer a supportive environment in which you can explore the role of leaders and leadership in educational settings, including understanding and interpreting educational data, how to present data to a team and how to work collaboratively with education stakeholders. We’ll encourage you to reflect on your own professional practice and guide you in your journey towards becoming a perceptive, responsive and decisive educational leader.
Highlights
- Our students are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds – sharing the individual and unique educational insights and perspectives of your peers help to enrich your learning experience.
- We promote research and critical enquiry helping you learn to make sound, evidence-based independent judgements.
- You’ll have the chance to develop enhanced key skills in line with your personal and professional development needs; for instance, autonomy, and professional accountability in relation to educational leadership and in leading learning communities.
- We’ll support you as you learn to critically reflect on and evaluate your own leadership skills, and develop innovative solutions for improvement considering national and local contextual influences.
- Intensive use of learning technologies and multimedia resources, such as virtual learning environments and eLearning tools, enhance your ICT skills and raise your awareness of resources from across the educational spectrum.
Key Features
- Our team of highly experienced, enthusiastic and dedicated experts offer face-to-face and blended sessions as well as one-to-one support.
- We embed the concepts and practice of inter-professional working throughout the programme.
- Our academic team is actively involved in educational research, helping you to explore issues from a robust research-informed knowledge base.
- We’ll support you to develop critical thinking and research evaluation skills and apply these during your independent master’s-level project.
- Our well-stocked library offers a comprehensive selection of relevant texts and access to an extensive online database of multimedia sources including eJournals, podcasts, vodcasts and eBooks.
- By choosing to study with us, you'll have the chance to enjoy Bolton's many shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities. Manchester, one of the UK's most multicultural and lively cities, is less than 20 minutes away by train. Not forgetting, the North West of England is renowned for its beautiful countryside, coastline and heritage. This makes Bolton an ideal base from which to explore some of the best cultural and outdoor activities the UK offers.
Entry Requirements
- Normally, you’ll have at least an Upper Second Class (2.1) Honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject, and appropriate work experience.
- An initial qualification in teaching, if this is not formally part of your first degree, is desirable and experience in the education sector is strongly advised because you’ll need to critically reflect on your experience and relate theory to practice.
- Your application form must be accompanied by a 250-word reflective statement. Your statement should include information about your professional teaching experience and the area(s) you wish to research during your master's-level project.
- Two references highlighting your potential to produce master’s level (level 7) academic work will be required. In particular, we need information about your professional teaching experience, so please encourage your referees to provide this information if they are able to.
- We may wish to interview you as part of the application process. This may be on an open day, over the telephone or via video conferencing.
- The dissertation module, EDM7070, offers course members the opportunity to undertake an in-depth investigation of an educational topic or issue that is of particular interest and relevance to their professional work and development. It is crucial that you have access to a person, or persons, who will act as participants for the research.
- We'll also consider applications where appropriate work experience can be demonstrated in lieu of, or in addition to, the published academic qualifications in line with the University’s Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL) procedures.
- If English isn’t your first language, you’ll also need IELTS 6.0 with no less than 5.5 in any band (or equivalent). We also accept a range of other English language qualifications – please visit our English Language Requirements web page for more details.
Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.
Career Opportunities
This programme addresses the professional development needs of experienced practitioners in education and public sector roles. This MA is designed to develop your abilities as an educational leader.
By the end of the course, we anticipate that you’ll have developed reflective and critical capabilities, alongside the necessary knowledge and skills to respond to a variety of educational leadership challenges within your organisation. As a graduate of a master’s degree from the University of Bolton you’ll also possess a number of career-enhancing skills such as interpersonal skills, research skills, oral and written skills, and the ability to work independently.
What can I do with this qualification?
Alternative career options
Graduates can also use the qualification as a stepping-stone to enter a range of other careers, and for some of these roles, both relevant experience and/or postgraduate study may be required. Some of these careers include:
- Educational charity work
- Educational policy
- Quality and inspection
- Training
- Lecturing
- Social Work
- Educational consultancy
- Local government
Fees & Funding
Please note the total course fee for a Home student starting this course in 2023/24 will be £7,920. As this is an 18-month course, the fees are £5,280 for the first year and £2,640 for the final semester.
Home/EU Fees
Home students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Home fee of £5,664 for the academic year 2025/26.
International Fees
Overseas students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Overseas fee of £17,500 for the academic year 2025/26.
Bursaries
Click here for more information on our Master's Bursaries.
Important note regarding tuition fees: EU nationals who meet residency requirements (have settled or pre-settled status) may be eligible for 'Home' fee status. If you do not meet these residency requirements, overseas fees will apply. Irish citizens living in the UK or Ireland will be eligible for 'Home' fee status under the Common Travel Area arrangement. Please read the student finance for EU students web page on www.gov.uk for information.
The fees for a student's course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.
How to apply
Home Applicants
You may apply directly to the University using the University's online application form. Please select your chosen start date from the list below:
You should have to hand:
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Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
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Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
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Details of any employment history including name, address, dates and role
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Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
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Details including e-mail addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference
Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.
Please ensure your data is correct at each stage of the application before you proceed to the next page. If you use the back button at any time during the application, you should check the validity of the data you have already input.
If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or admissions-team@bolton.ac.uk
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Apply online: University of Bolton MA Educational Leadership - 22 September 2025
International Applicants
Thank you for your interest
In order to determine your suitability for this course as an international student and also to confirm you meet any initial eligibility criteria, we need you to answer a few short questions.
Teaching & Assessment
This course is designed to help you develop and build on your current knowledge and experience as an education practitioner and a leader. Experience and practice underpinned by informed research are valued and drawn upon throughout.
We’ll use a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies on this course. These may include lectures, presentations, seminars, workshops, collaborative discussion and group work, debates and tutorials. You can also expect a range of assessment methods, such as essays, reports, presentations, portfolios and course work. Your learning journey will be supported by the intensive use of technology and multimedia resources.
Personal and independent study is essential and you should expect to devote a significant amount of time to the course.
Modules
The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.
- Policy and Curriculum Development
- Leading Learning Communities
- Advanced Mentoring
- Advanced Coaching
- Critical Enquiry and Reflection
- Dissertation
Assessment methods
| Level | Assessment method |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Coursework 100% |
Learning Activities
| Level | Activity |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Guided independent study 84% Scheduled learning and teaching activities 16% |
The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.
