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BA (Hons) + PGCE
Undergraduate degree - combined honours
We accept a wide range of qualifications for entry to our undergraduate programmes. The main ones are listed under 'Typical offers' in the main column below. For combined courses, please check both subjects. If your qualification is not listed, please email admissions@bathspa.ac.uk with your specific details.
This secondary education degree is designed to enable you to gain real teaching experience before you embark on your PGCE. You'll study Education - in the broader contexts of professional practice, policy, teaching and learning - alongside the subject you're most passionate about.
In teaching, subject expertise and enthusiasm isn't enough to give you the edge. This award gives you the practical experience of working in schools with young people that employers are looking for.
The course offers a guaranteed interview for our Secondary PGCE, and is flexible; we'll support you in achieving your aspirations as a professional educator - however they develop during the programme. You'll benefit from our tutors' wealth of research and practice-informed expertise when you join this community of learning and practice.
“I believe that completing the Education degree prior to starting the PGCE has provided an invaluable ‘foundation’ to the PGCE course.”
Samantha-Jayne Moore, graduate
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.
Year one
The first year introduces key concepts and skills that underpin the subject of Education Studies. In addition, the placement module provides you with a sound introduction to secondary schools via a school placement.
Year two
You’ll consider more deeply the current issues in education, such as pedagogy, pupil voice, special needs, assessment and classroom organisation. You’ll undertake a second school placement, this time with a focus on developing your professionalism.
Year three
This year, the Teaching and Professionalism module prepares you for the PGCE. For your dissertation, you'll explore an issue of your choice and use your creativity and the skills you've gained so far to develop a classroom resource to address it. You'll also have opportunities to engage with PGCE staff and students; this eases your transition to initial teacher training.
Coursework includes essays, group presentations, research-based reports and portfolio-based work. We’ll provide you with prompt feedback and give you regular guidance on how to improve your skills, knowledge and understanding.
All modules are led by experienced and respected university staff. Many staff are active researchers and authors in the field of education studies; from the outset they’ll introduce you to their particular specialisms and research interests. You’ll also benefit from regular visiting speakers – these include headteachers, PGCE staff, practitioners, educational advisers, specialist researchers and international visitors.
This course offers or includes the following modules. The modules you take will depend on your pathway or course combination (if applicable) as well as any optional or open modules chosen. Please check the programme document (below the main image on this page) for more information.
We have an excellent partnership with schools, where you can develop your understanding of Secondary level teaching.
You’ll attend a placement in each year of the programme of approximately eight to ten days. They usually occur on one day a week during a term, to allow you to continue with other university studies. We’ll arrange each placement for you. We try to ensure you are located within a reasonable distance from where you live; however, you should normally expect to travel using your own or public transport.
You must be in possession of a Bath Spa DBS disclosure. Details are sent once you have accepted your place with us.
You’ll have the opportunity to study in a wide range of locations around the world. Our students have completed Erasmus+ and Exchange programmes in a variety of countries.
This course is designed to inform a range of education careers - from classroom teaching, to advisory roles that inform policy and practice both nationally and internationally.
Successful completion of the degree leads to a guaranteed interview for our Oftsted 'Outsanding' rated Secondary PGCE course.
Our students often enter the teaching profession in local schools and a range of other settings, and benefit from continued participation in the community of research and practice here at Bath Spa.
Your Secondary Education modules are based at Newton Park campus. You'll also undertake placements in schools in each year of your studies.
You'll benefit from access to a wide range of excellent facilities, including:
You'll have access to the PGCE team, particularly in your final year as you transition to intitial teacher training, and you'll also benefit from talks by guest speakers and incoming experts. Access to our research centre, TED-W, will give you the opportunity to stay up-to-date with the latest in teaching research and excellence.
Please note: Students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland are no longer eligible for the UK (Home) fee status. Please refer to the international student rate.
Year 1 | £9,250 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2025 |
Year 1 | £14,720 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2025 |
During the placement year, the fee is reduced to 20% of the full time fee. Otherwise, fees are the same as for full time study. This applies to UK, EU and International students.
You’ll have a passion for the subject, a curiosity for the sources of things, and how they inform our present, a commitment to finding out more, and a willingness to try new things. You may already have some great ideas about what you like to do and where you’d like to focus. Or you might want to look at historical topics in new ways, and explore aspects of the past you haven’t encountered before.
We accept a wide range of qualifications for entry to our undergraduate programmes. The main ones are listed below:
English Language Requirements for International and EU Applicants
IELTS 6.0 - for visa nationals, with a minimum score of IELTS 5.5 in each element.
Course enquiries
For further information about the programme or entry requirements, please email us at admissions@bathspa.ac.uk.
Ready to apply? Click the 'apply now' button in the centre of this page.
Need more guidance? Head to our how to apply pages.
Admissions service: admissions@bathspa.ac.uk
Course leader: Eleanor West
Email: e.west@bathspa.ac.uk
Our innovative History degree has been designed to enable you to acquire specialised subject knowledge while developing practical and professional skills that you can apply to contemporary challenges, issues and debates.
Our History course is inspiring, innovative and compelling. We start with our amazing location – the Newton Park campus is beautiful, but it’s also a historic resource in its own right and a way into a wide range of historical subjects and approaches – from reading a landscape to analysing the symbols of wealth and power.
The cities of Bath and Bristol, right on our doorstep, offer an extraordinary wealth of material for historical study. Bristol, after all, is the city where the statue of Edward Colston was toppled into the river, and made us all reflect on the ways in which history continues to shape the present. The subject is vital: we need to understand where we’ve been, to have a sense of where we might go next.
We also offer a unique approach to learning in and outside your subject. We work collaboratively with a wide range of disciplines to offer you the best possible foundation for your studies, so that you can place history in context and make connections across time and place. In the first and second year, this means that you’ll deepen your knowledge of history, but also develop your understanding of it through work in literature, philosophy or politics – the ways in which we see the world, and the ways others do. In your final year, you’ll be able to produce a major piece of historical work of your own, building on and demonstrating the skills you’ve already acquired.
We want you to become a confident communicator, able to sift through the raw materials of history and re-present your findings to any audience – on any platform. Yes, you’ll write essays. But we also want you to be able to podcast, tweet, blog, create scripts for film and radio, and adapt your style to suit a range of consumers, including young audiences. We also want you to be able to plan and initiate projects, work with your peers and with our external partners, and make a contribution to our wider community.
Our programmes are taught by people whose research embraces past and present, abstract concepts and physical structures. It crosses continents. We analyse big data and tiny fragments of text. We explore objects and images, the rhetoric of power, the gaps in the narrative. Our research has impact internationally, nationally and locally. Our teaching draws on this and on our work as policy advisors, trustees, fundraisers, advocates, curators, conservators, broadcasters, game designers, web editors, poets. Our graduates go on to do all of these things. And more.
We combine the academic study of history with skill-based modules to create a practical, applied History degree. You could find yourself learning to write a funding application for one of your modules, pitching ideas to one of our partner organisations for another, and sifting through primary archival sources in a third.
You’ll gain broad historical skills and expertise – how to read historical texts; how to use a wide range of historical sources; how to discuss and debate historical subjects. You’ll also learn to analyse, process information, make decisions, manage projects, network, collaborate, and work with experts inside and outside the University.
Year one
Introductions and foundations: develop your historical skills and follow a broad curriculum which allows you to ask questions, challenge your own assumptions, interrogate evidence, data and opinions.
Year two
Practical, applied, relevant: this year combines the academic study of your chosen topics with the acquisition of professional skills and the application of your knowledge and understanding to a defined problem or idea.
Year three
Achievement, consolidation, creativity: your final project in the third year brings all this together. You’ll identify your own historical questions, develop your proposal and put it into practice. This might be an extended piece of academic writing, but it might also be an exhibition, community project, or the creation of digital resources.
We’ll assess your progress in a variety of ways including essays, research papers, group presentations, projects, portfolios, and reports. There are timed assessments and some modules will have end-of-year examinations.
Our assessment methods allow you to develop and demonstrate different skills. Many of these will help you in the workplace, for example: planning ahead, working to deadlines, and managing priorities.
You’ll get to grips with your subject through lectures, seminars, workshops, and individual tutorials.
You can take advantage of the learning support provided across the University, whether to develop your writing skills or to learn how to use new techniques and technologies.
This optional placement year provides you with the opportunity to identify, apply for and secure professional experience, normally comprising one to three placements over a minimum of nine months. Successful completion of this module will demonstrate your ability to secure and sustain graduate-level employment.
By completing the module, you'll be entitled to the addition of 'with Professional Placement Year' to your degree title.
Before your Professional Placement Year, you'll work to secure your placement, constructing a development plan with your module leader and your placement coordinator from our Careers and Employability team.
On your return to University for your final year, you'll submit your Placement Portfolio, detailing your development on your placement.
Our campus is a historic resource in its own right. You’ll be based mainly at our Newton Park campus. Our campus buildings – which include a period manor house, gatehouse, keep, and state-of-the-art learning and performance facilities – are set in an eighteenth-century landscape complete with lake and pavilions.
With excellent links to nearby Bristol, you benefit from all the advantages of a buzzing, modern city, while being based in a beautiful, rural location just outside Bath city centre.
You'll have access to excellent facilities including:
Please note: Students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland are no longer eligible for the UK (Home) fee status. Please refer to the international student rate.
Year 1 | £9,250 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2025 |
Year 1 | £14,720 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2022 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 1 | Published Jan 2023 |
Year 2 | Published Jan 2024 |
Year 3 | Published Jan 2025 |
During the placement year, the fee is reduced to 20% of the full time fee. Otherwise, fees are the same as for full time study. This applies to UK, EU and International students.
We’re looking for individuals who are curious, reflective and interested in their subject areas. You’ll be motivated, committed and keen to push the boundaries of your knowledge and get the best possible preparation for your future career.
We accept a wide range of qualifications for entry to our undergraduate programmes. The main ones are listed below. All applicants will also be required to hold GCSEs at Grade C/4 or above in English, Maths and Science.
English Language Requirements for International and EU Applicants
IELTS 6.0 - for visa nationals, with a minimum score of IELTS 5.5 in each element.
Entry requirements for PGCE courses
The entry requirements for subsequent interview to the PGCE programme may alter (for example if the DfE changes entry requirements for PGCE courses). You’ll be advised of any changes during the degree.
Course enquiries
For further information about the programme or entry requirements, please email us at admissions@bathspa.ac.uk.
Ready to apply? Click the 'apply now' button in the centre of this page.
Need more guidance? Head to our how to apply pages.
Admissions service: admissions@bathspa.ac.uk
Course leader: Dr Alison Hems
Email: a.hems@bathspa.ac.uk
Website feedback to web@bathspa.ac.uk