The programme aims to provide a career development opportunity which will both improve the quality of the teacher’s professional life and enhance his/her capacity to teach effectively.

The programme aims to provide a framework for thinking about the development of the personality from birth to adulthood and to link this with an understanding of the pre-requisites for effective teaching and learning and the factors which inhibit both.

The programme aims to promote the use of psychoanalytic observational skills in classrooms and to enable teachers to apply psychoanalytic understanding to what they observe and to develop a wider range of strategies to help and support children.

Knowledge

• A working knowledge of psychoanalytic concepts and their relevance to teaching and learning.
• A knowledge of the processes involved in healthy development and some of the factors which interfere with it and which may lead to the development of psychopathology, impaired creativity and an inability to learn
• An enhanced understanding of oneself and aspects of one's own internal world which impact on one's responses and behaviour in one's professional life.
• A working knowledge of psychoanalytic theories of group and institutional dynamics and their application to educational settings.

Thinking skills

• The capacity to think critically about the teaching and learning process and the institutional context within which it takes place.
• The ability to recognise and reflect on the impact of working with troubled and distressed and/or challenging children and young people.

Subject-Based Practical skills

• Highly developed skills of observing, recording and presenting observational material.
• The capacity to make use of the ideas offered by peers and by programme tutors and to apply these in the work setting. The capacity to offer a similar kind of support to colleagues in the work setting as appropriate.

Skills for life and work (general skills)

• Self reflective practice
• The ability and confidence to present ideas to small and large groups and to risk sharing doubts and uncertainties as well as achievements.

To be aware of issues of difference and to promote thoughtful, anti-discriminatory practice.

The programme is one year to PGCert, two to PGDip and three to MA. Students sometimes choose to take an extra year over their dissertation.

The teaching year consists of three terms of ten weeks duration with breaks at Christmas, Easter and in the summer. There is a half term break in the spring term and a reading week in the middle of the summer term.

Year One (PG Cert)

• Lecture series covering personality development from birth to adulthood. Roots of learning in infancy and models of learning at each stage of development. External and internal impediments to learning. Psychoanalytic theory...concepts of defences against anxiety, projection, containment, transference and counter-transference and their application to non clinical settings. Psychoanalytic observation skills. Education focused topics such as bullying, assessment, inspection and special needs.
• Work discussion seminars.

Year Two (PG Dip)

• Lecture series covering theory of group and institutional dynamics. Issues of task, role, authority, leadership, followership etc. Anti-task group behaviours. Significance of groups at different stages of development. Significance of group size etc. Introduction to systemic theory.
• Experiential Group
• Work Discussion Group

Year Three (MA)

• Autumn Term
• Dissertation Proposal Seminars
• Spring and summer terms
• Work with individual dissertation supervisors
• Reading seminars and Work in Progress seminars

• In order to gain a Postgraduate Certificate, you will need to obtain 60 credits at Level M.
• In order to gain a Postgraduate Diploma, you will need to obtain 120 credits at Level
• In order to obtain a Masters, you will need to obtain 180 credits at Level M. These credits will include a 60 credit level M core unit of advanced independent research.

• Knowledge and skills are developed through:-
• Informal lecture presentations with opportunity for discussion.
• Seminar teaching in which there is an emphasis on the opportunity for participation in an atmosphere of thoughtful debate.
• Presentation and discussion of detailed observational material form the work setting.
• Study of relevant texts.
• Experiential learning through group membership and through being invited to reflect on the experience of being a learner in small and large group settings.

In years one and two, three written submissions are assessed and are graded as either pass, merit or not passed. Merit grades and Distinctions are indicative of the capacity to write an MA dissertation. Feedback is given on written assignments, providing guidelines for future improvement/development.