˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿

Key facts

Entry requirements

104 or DMM

Full entry requirements

UCAS code

W850

Institution code

D26

Duration

3 yrs full-time

3 years full time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

Entry requirements

UCAS code

W850

Institution code

D26

Duration

3 yrs full-time

3 years full time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

This programme offers an exciting opportunity to combine expertise in both creative writing and education studies. You’ll work with professional researchers, published writers, research-active academics, and visiting practitioners, gaining valuable insights into both disciplines.

Our innovative course structure in Creative Writing keeps things exciting by allowing you to explore various forms and styles while offering the freedom to focus on what inspires you most. Whether you’re honing existing skills or discovering new talents, you’ll thrive in our hands-on Creative Writing modules. From collaborative writing and drafting to receiving feedback and revising, you’ll be immersed in the process. With industry-focused skills woven throughout the curriculum, you’ll gain the confidence to excel as a writer, learning from successful published authors in a vibrant community.

In Education Studies, you’ll explore how people learn, develop, and interact with knowledge throughout their lives. This discipline equips you with skills that are invaluable in a range of professions, from teaching and educational policy to human resources and community work. Understanding how people think, learn, and grow fosters empathy and critical thinking, empowering you to make a positive impact in sectors where education plays a key role.

  • Join a programme uniquely organised by theme, supporting you in developing a wide range of writing practices, including fiction, poetry, memoir, screenwriting, and digital writing.
  • Engage with regional writing networks, participate in spoken word events, and showcase your work through book fairs and festivals like ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿’s annual States of Independence.
  • Expand your creative practice by working in dynamic settings such as Leicester Gallery, local museums, ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿’s Special Collections archive, and ghost story workshops in a deconsecrated chapel.
  • Explore various academic disciplines to discuss and question educational structures, policy, practice, and theory.
  • Develop transferable skills applicable to careers in education and socially and culturally oriented professions.

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Block teaching designed around you

You deserve a positive teaching and learning experience, where you feel part of a supportive and nurturing community. That’s why most students will enjoy an innovative approach to learning using block teaching, where you will study one module at a time. You’ll benefit from regular assessments – rather than lots of exams at the end of the year – and a simple timetable that allows you to engage with your subject and enjoy other aspects of university life such as sports, societies, meeting friends and discovering your new city. By studying with the same peers and tutor for each block, you’ll build friendships and a sense of belonging. Read more about block teaching.

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What you will study

Block 1: Exploring Creative Writing

Both in workshops and through independent study, you will explore a wide range of short-form writing, including a variety of modes: international strict form poetry (e.g., sonnet, rondeau, terza rima, ghazal, villanelle, sestina), free verse, flash fiction, and historical flash fiction. Ethical questions about combining fact and fiction are addressed in an introduction to historical fiction. You may also explore review writing in real-world contexts and digital short-form writing on social media platforms, enhancing your transferable employability skills.

The focus on short-form writing across various genres enables you to develop clarity of expression and conciseness while practising redrafting and editing, building your confidence as a writer. A range of exercises will generate new writing. You will give one another formative feedback, and evaluate the responses your work receives, providing structured opportunities to consolidate writing skills for your final submissions.

Assessment: Collaborative Writing (20%) and Short Form Portfolio (80%)

Block 2: Journey and Places

This module focuses on journeys and places, offering the chance to explore key concepts underpinning your studies. You will take a post-disciplinary approach, using techniques from diverse areas to address questions related to journeys and places.

Interactive lectures with students from across the School of Humanities and Performing Arts provide opportunities to apply these concepts in subject-specific workshops and assessments.

Themes may include journeys, spaces, and the concept of welcome; (im)mobilities and journeys through time and space; representation and imaginative geographies; gender and placemaking; belonging and place attachment; and sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Assessment: Subject-specific Coursework 1 (30%) and Coursework 2 (70%)

Block 3: Childhood, Social Justice and Education

This module introduces key contemporary debates in Childhood Studies. It explores the construction of childhood, inequalities surrounding it, and what it means to be a child in the UK today. Drawing on sociological and political theories, you will critically evaluate issues impacting childhood and how they are reflected, sustained, or challenged by society. You will also contest and interrogate your own thinking about childhood and society.

Assessment: Academic Poster (40%) and Report (60%)

Block 4: Shaping Ideas

This year-long module develops your writing practice, focusing on your existing creative projects. You’ll plan, research, and develop these projects effectively, learning the importance of constructive feedback. Key activities include workshopping, character development, and place writing techniques.

Assessment: Feedback Report (20%) and Creative Work & Reflective Commentary (80%)

You will have a choice of options for Block 3

Block 1: Writing Identity

This module explores how identity is negotiated in writing, both in the creation of fictional characters and in your own identity as a writer and creative thinker.
You will engage with a variety of fictional, biographical, autobiographical, poetic, and theoretical material. You will explore how memory, observation, experience, and imagination contribute to producing poetry, fiction, and essays. You may also explore writing about your own experiences of identity, including selfhood, memory, and personality, while considering the fictional aspects of written identity. You will engage in critical, ethical, and moral debates around identity in the 21st century.

You will also consider the responsibility of writers to represent individuals and groups with care, particularly in relation to equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI). Discussions will focus on issues such as race, gender, class, and place, including postcolonial identities and the role of intersectionality.

Assessment: Writing Identity Portfolio (100%)

Block 2: Exploring Work and Society

This module prepares you for post-degree pathways by focusing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge needed to thrive in professional environments. Emphasis is placed on core attributes and transferable skills while developing familiarity with the world of work.

You will critically engage with themes such as race, gender, identity, and geopolitical issues in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, conceptualizing a more equitable and sustainable society.

Through workshops, lectures, seminars, and independent learning, you will explore work environments connected to creative writing and related fields. Activities may include responding to real-world briefs, placements, community projects, and creating project proposals.

Assessment: Written Portfolio or Recorded Presentation (100%)

Block 3: Understanding Learning and Wellbeing

Optional module

This module explores social and emotional development, examining how these areas are interlinked with cognitive growth. You will study psychological and socio-political theories to better understand student wellbeing and how the education system supports children’s development.

Assessment: Essay (100%)

Block 3: Cultural and Technological Transformations

Optional module

This module examines how technology has impacted education and learning, focusing on media literacy, e-learning, and the digital divide. You will explore how technology creates opportunities for inclusive education and empowers students through platforms like gaming and podcasting.

Assessment: e-Portfolio (100%)

Block 3: Music in the Life of the Primary School

This module is based on the principles that everyone can be a musician and that teachers can offer high-quality musical experiences. Practical musical activities will be explored, with no prior music expertise required.

Assessment: Brochure (100%)

Year-long: Word, Image, Sound

This year-long module builds upon skills developed in previous modules, focusing on how word, image, and sound intersect in creative writing. You will explore a range of writing forms, including ekphrastic poetry, poetry films, podcasting, screenplays, and more, culminating in a creative project.

Assessment: Journal (30%) and Creative Work & Letter (70%)

You will have a choice of options for Block 3

Block 1: Screentime

The theme of this module is writing for screens and with screens. You’ll develop skills in writing for various screen genres and platforms, focusing on optimising your writing for the 21st-century context. Genres may include podcasts, poetry films, TV or film scripts, web novels, and social media flash fiction. Collaborative work, such as creating a TV sitcom episode or web novel, is also included.

Assessment: Screentime Reflection (30%) and Screentime Project (70%)

Block 2: Writing and Publishing

This module provides professional skills and industry knowledge relevant to creative writing. Topics may include international publishing trends, copyright, digital marketing, and self-publishing. You’ll also hear from industry professionals and explore global developments in writing and publishing.

Assessment: Marketing Plan (30%) and Publication Project (70%)

Block 3: Curriculum Design and Co-Creation

This module introduces curriculum design and improvement, offering practical skills in creating and critiquing curricula. You will respond to a real-world brief, building collaboration and communication skills.

Assessment: Coursework 1 (40%) and Coursework 2 (60%)

Block 3: Reflection on Practice: Teaching and Learning

This module promotes critical reflection on teaching and learning processes. You will undertake a placement in a learning environment and reflect on your experiences, preparing for diverse professional settings.

Assessment: Presentation (40%) and Portfolio (60%)

Block 3: Gender and Education

This module examines debates around gender in education, exploring the historically disadvantaged position of females and the construction of gender. Recent debates on gender and achievement, including the "problem of boys," will also be covered.

Assessment: Coursework (40%) and Project (60%)

Block 4: Dissertation

The final-year dissertation provides an opportunity to work on a single form or genre of your choice. You’ll produce a professional creative work, accompanied by a critical reflective essay. This module focuses on redrafting, receiving feedback, and managing a professional writing project from conception to completion.

Assessment: Concept Testing (20%) and Dissertation (80%)

Note: All modules are indicative and based on the current academic session. Course information is correct at the time of publication and is subject to review. Exact modules may, therefore, vary for your intake in order to keep content current. If there are changes to your course we will, where reasonable, take steps to inform you as appropriate.

Structure

Creative Writing is a practice-based subject, where you’ll learn by doing, guided by successful published writers. You’ll join a creative community of writers, with workshops fostering collaboration and helping you grow as a writer within this dynamic group.

Your Education Studies modules also encourage collaborative learning while supporting individual learning styles. You’ll have the flexibility to tailor your assignments to the projects, genres, and issues that interest you most. Lecturers aim to provide transformative experiences through innovative teaching and research that impacts staff, students, and the wider community.

Assessment methods across both subjects include creative writing pieces, publications, case studies, essays, presentations, and e-portfolios. Creative Writing coursework focuses on critical reflection and analysis, teaching you to read as a practitioner.

The programme supports ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿’s EDI strategy and fosters collaboration, critical thinking, and self-awareness. You’ll also develop entrepreneurial skills to thrive in diverse professional settings.

Contact hours

You will be taught through a combination of workshops, lectures, tutorials, group work and self-directed study. In your first year you will normally attend around 8-10 hours of timetabled taught sessions (principally workshops) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 28 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.

Creative Writing with Education Studies in the spotlight

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Our facilities

Library and learning zones

Kimberlin Library offers a space where you can work, study and access a vast range of print materials, with computer stations, laptops, plasma screens and assistive technology also available. As well as providing a physical space in which to work, we offer online tools to support your studies, and our extensive online collection of resources.

Library and learning zones

Learning beyond the classroom

In some modules you may undertake independent or guided field trips for creative practice research. This may include exploring ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ campus, the local area, your home area or further afield. Other facilities at ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ may also be visited, such as the ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ library, The Gallery, Trinity Chapel and ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ Special Collections. On occasions, you may be encouraged to visit local museums and galleries, green spaces and historic sites of interest, such as Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Newarke Houses, the city’s statues and monuments, Bradgate Park.

Find out more

Where we could take you

Students at the ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ Careers Hub

Placements

During this programme you will have the option to complete a paid placement year, an invaluable opportunity to put the skills developed during your degree into practice. Placements are available in diverse industries, and recent students have benefitted from positions in copywriting and marketing. This insight into the professional world will build on your knowledge in a real-world setting, preparing you to progress onto your chosen career.

Our Careers Team offers a range of careers resources and opportunities so you can start planning your future.

 

graduate-careers

Graduate careers

Employability skills are embedded in the curriculum to prepare you for a range of careers both related to Creative Writing, Education Studies and in wider industries. This course also helps develop skills that are particularly useful for students with an interest in developing a career working with young children.

The programme will equip you with a broad range of transferrable skills for careers within and beyond the creative industries and the education sector including creative thinking, critical analysis, problem solving, research, independent study, editing, digital writing, publishing and proof reading. We will encourage you to think more widely about employability, and to recognise – and articulate to employers – the rich skills you bring to any workplace.

Our graduates have gone on to forge successful careers in various professions, such as writing, teaching, publishing, marketing and PR, film making, fundraising, the charities sector, while others undertake further studies such as the Creative Writing MA at ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿.

 

What makes us special

Image of three students working at a laptop

Block learning

With block teaching, you’ll learn in a focused format, where you study one subject at a time instead of several at once. As a result, you will receive faster feedback through more regular assessment, have a more simplified timetable, and have a better study-life balance. That means more time to engage with your ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ community and other rewarding aspects of university life.

DMU-global

Global experiences

Our innovative international experience programme ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ Global aims to enrich studies, broaden cultural horizons and develop key skills valued by employers.

Through , we offer an exciting mix of overseas, on-campus and online international experiences, including the opportunity to study or work abroad for up to a year.

Students on this programme have the opportunity to take part in the activities offered by ˽·¿¾ãÀÖ²¿ Global, including the option to study or work abroad for up to a year. Students on the Creative Writing BA (Hons) course have considered the theme of borders and exile on a walking tour of Berlin, taken part in a scavenger hunt in the New York Public Library and discovered Danish literature in Copenhagen.

Course specifications

Course title

Creative Writing with Education Studies

Award

BA (Hons)

UCAS code

W850

Institution code

D26

Study level

Undergraduate

Study mode

Full-time

Start date

September

Duration

3 years full time, 4 years with placement

Fees

2025/26 UK tuition fees:
£9,535*

2025/26 international tuition:
£16,250

*subject to the government, as is expected, passing legislation to formalise the increase.

Entry requirements

  • 104 points from at least 2 A Levels
  • BTEC Extended Diploma DMM
  • International Baccalaureate: 24+ Points or
  • T Levels Merit

Plus five GCSEs grades 9-4 including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above.

  • Pass Access with 30 Level 3 credits at Merit (or equivalent) and GCSE English (Language or Literature) at grade 4 or above.

We will normally require students have had a break from full-time education before undertaking the Access course.

  • We also accept the BTEC First Diploma plus two GCSEs including English Language or Literature at grade 4 or above

Note: Applicants with non-standard qualifications may be asked to complete a piece of work to support their application.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, an IELTS score of 6.0 overall with 5.5 in each band (or equivalent) when you start the course is essential.

English language tuition, delivered by our British Council-accredited Centre for English Language Learning, is available both before and throughout the course if you need it.