Education

Education

Education is one of the most powerful means for change and growth in the modern world. If you’re interested in the psychology, politics or social and cultural contexts of education and learning, you can study it on our Education course.

Admissions overview at Downing College  

Why study Education at Cambridge? 

Teaching

Teaching is provided through lectures, seminars and small-group supervisions.  

You will usually have four to six lectures and seminars, and one or two hours of small-group supervisions each week.

Assessment

You’ll be assessed at the end of each year. Depending on the papers studied, this will be through practical work, coursework, written examination, or a combination of these.  

In the third year, you will also be assessed through your dissertation.

You won't usually be able to resit any of your exams.

Year 1 (Part I)

You take four compulsory papers:

• Introduction to Education Systems and Disciplines
• Learning and Human Development
• Education, Creativity and Culture
• Education and Social Justice

These papers will provide you with a strong foundation to support you in a range of more specialist options in your second and third years.

Year 2 (Part IIA) 

You take two compulsory papers:

• Designing Educational Research
• Dissertation: Literature Review

These papers will provide you with the foundations of Education research, in preparation for your dissertation in the third year.

You also choose two more papers which will build on what you studied in your first year. You can choose your own pathway through these papers which will continue into your third year.  

You may choose to specialise in:

• psychology
• literature
• policy and international development  

If you don’t want to specialise, you can choose a range of papers that interest you.

Examples of papers that may be offered include:

• Children’s Literature
• Modernity, Globalisation and Education
• Theatre: Text and Production
• Studies in educational ideas
• Formal and Informal Contexts of Learning
• Critical approaches to Disability and Special Educational Needs
• Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures
• Performance, Education and Society

Year 3 (Part IIB)

You take four papers:  

• a compulsory dissertation of 8,000 to 10,000 words which will allow you to pursue a research project into a relevant area of particular interest to you.
• three more papers from a list of options, so you can study what interests you the most.

Examples of papers that may be offered include:

• Children’s Literature
• Modernity, Globalisation and Education
• Theatre: Text and Production
• Education, Neuroscience and Society
• Formal and Informal Contexts of Learning
• Play, Creativities and Imagination
• Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures
• Performance, Education and Society

For further information about this course and the papers you can take see the Faculty of Education website.

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Why study Education at Downing?

A Level: Our standard conditional offer for this subject is usually A*AA at A level or 41 - 42 points overall and 776 at Higher Level in IB.  All Colleges may modify offers to take account of individual circumstances. Further information can be found here.

For Education, English, Drama and the Arts, A level (or equivalent) English Literature is highly desirable.

For Education, Policy and International Development and Education, Psychology and Learning, A level (or equivalent) subjects relevant to the track you wish to study would be useful.

For other qualification and equivalency information please see the main University admissions pages.

Links to the Education page on the main Undergraduate Admissions website.

After Downing

The career options for graduates are extremely varied and they find employment in a wide range of occupations in the UK and abroad. As well as further study and teaching, our students have gone into research, educational psychology and neuroscience, publishing, and the Civil Service. Others now work in government policy and administration, the media, theatre, heritage and museum education, HR, business and consultancy, charities and NGOs, and international development.

Our course provides excellent preparation for a wide range of Masters and doctoral research programmes, both at Cambridge and elsewhere.

Alternatively, for those intending to teach, the course provides a foundation from which to proceed to initial teacher training in primary education.

What Education students have studied

Though Education doesn't ask for any specific subjects, the University recommends these subjects for a strong application:

• English (language or literature)
• History
• Languages (ancient or modern)
• Social science subjects

According to the University, most Education students (who had studied A levels and started at Cambridge in 2018, 2019 and 2023) had studied at least one of the subjects recommended above. The rest had usually taken at least one of:

• Ancient History, Classical Civilisation, Economics, Further Mathematics, Geography, Politics, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Religious Studies, sciences (Biology, Chemistry or Physics) or Sociology.
• Mathematics
• Psychology