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A image to illustrate Exploring educational leadership: values, context and strategy module
Have you ever wondered how the wider external world and context impact internal challenges and leadership decision-making? This module examines the strategic aspects of leadership in education and the complexity of 'wicked' problems that leaders encounter daily. Drawing on a range of global cases, you will consider how values influence leadership and strategic change. This module examines a range of perspectives, helping to connect theory to practice across formal and informal educational settings. Through an experiential learning and reflective practitioner approach, you will investigate current leadership issues with fresh insights.
The module is divided into five sections, focusing on the key concepts of context, values, and strategy, and offering a choice that suits your interests and provides support in developing postgraduate skills.
Introduction
The first section presents an overview of the module and learning, introducing perspectives on leadership in a wide range of professional contexts where training and leading learning are involved. You will consider how leadership encompasses both theoretical and practical elements and take up the challenge to read critically.
Context
The second section provides insight into the nature and importance of context in leadership. Drawing on a wide range of examples of leadership from educational, professional, and training contexts across the world, you will examine the ways in which an organisation's internal context and the wider external context at local, regional, and national levels can impact leadership approaches.
Values
The third section focuses on values, including trust and social justice. You will consider the importance of power in relationships and critically examine values-based leadership in research readings. You will consider ethical perspectives and some of the ethical dilemmas which emerge in leadership situations. You will continue to develop your own perspectives and interests on leadership in terms of practice you are familiar with.
Strategy
The fourth section of the module considers strategic leadership. You will examine theories of leadership and consider the key elements of effective leadership. You will examine the social dimensions of leadership and how different leadership styles can influence change. You will also focus on ways in which technologies and digital strategies are important influences on leadership.
Enquiry
The final section supports your interests and practice and introduces research skills for small-scale enquiry. This develops an understanding of the assumptions and theories underpinning leadership research, as well as ways to critique leadership literature. It is preparation for the final dissertation module in your master’s qualification, where you will plan or carry out a small-scale enquiry into a leadership topic relevant to you. This section also provides the opportunity to review and critically reflect on the module as a whole, pulling together all the strands that have been addressed and consolidating your understanding, values, and professional learning.
Professional development
Improvement in your leadership practice is an integral part of the module, and the recording of your own professional development is an aspect that runs throughout. You will be guided on how to recognise and capture these skills.
As you progress through the module, you will take on greater responsibility for managing your own learning. Throughout, there is an expectation that you will participate in both tutor group discussions and module forum discussions. The tutor group forums feed directly into the assignments.
Exploring educational leadership: values, context and strategy (EE842) is designed to appeal to educationalists interested in developing learning of leadership in a wide range of practice settings and to contribute to current or future roles in relation to leadership. It will enhance your understanding of leadership, can support your professional development as a practice leader and your ability to provide educational leadership within an organisation or sector. It is also the second of three specialist modules in the Leadership and management route within our Masters degree in Education (F70).
You’ll have a named tutor who will support your studies and mark and comment on your assignment work; you can also ask them for academic advice and guidance. You and your tutor will primarily communicate with each other through email and online tutorials. Tutorials are offered via online meeting rooms and support is also facilitated asynchronously in online tutor group forums and module forums. Tutors will also offer online sessions about aspects of the content of the module to the wider cohort of students on the module, which will be a good way to ‘meet’ other students and tutors. We will advertise the tutorials and wider online events before the module starts. Tutorials will be with your tutor, but some of the wider online events may be led by other academic staff associated with the module. We recommend you book online to attend tutorials and note the dates for the live online events.
Working with other students
There is no compulsory requirement for you to interact or collaborate with others in your tutor group, though there are clear advantages to doing so. Many students do this asynchronously through forums and social media, others choose to meet online. We know that the sharing of ideas and experiences with your peers increases understanding of the issues that are studied on this module and therefore there are some activities that benefit from working with other students.
Course work includes:
Access to the module study materials via the module website. This includes:
EE842 is an option module in our:
Sometimes you cannot count a module towards a qualification if you have already counted another module with similar content. To verify any excluded combinations with this module, check with an adviser before registering.
Exploring educational leadership: values, context and strategy (EE842) starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026.
We expect it to start for the last time in October 2030.
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations, which are available on our Student Policies and Regulations website.
You should be prepared for study at postgraduate level and must have a minimum of a:
Some knowledge and understanding of learning and teaching (around curriculum, pedagogy and assessment) will be expected.
Your spoken and written English must be of an adequate standard for postgraduate study. If English is not your first language, we recommend that you will need a minimum overall score of 7.0 under the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Please see the IELTS website for details.
This module is designed to follow Educational leadership: concepts, change and challenges (EE841). To study EE842 you must have passed Learning and teaching: educating the next generation (EE830) or one of the discontinued modules EE811, EE814 or EE817.
In some cases, students may be able to use credit transfer from relevant prior postgraduate study to meet the entry requirements for this module. For more details and how to apply, please see the Credit Transfer website.
You do not need to be employed in or have access to an educational setting or be in a formal leadership position to study this module. However, it is important that you have a professional interest in leadership and education and some experience of engaging with leadership and working with educational settings/situations. You will need to be in a position to be able to apply your learning to a relevant context or learning environment. In order to get the most out of your studies on EE842 you do need to have an educational context that you know well, to which you can apply what you learn. This may be somewhere you have worked in the past, or somewhere that you volunteer in some role.
Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader (and where applicable: musical notation and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way). Our resources have been accessibility checked and information to support accessibility of these resources will be found on the module website, which is available during study. This includes alternative formats of the module materials where available, which may be extended in the future.
Where possible, we can make reasonable adjustments to facilitate your participation where a learning difficulty or disability may impact studying.
StartEndRegister byEngland fee
03 Oct 202631 Oct 202717 Sep 2026£2,950
If you study this module as part of an eligible qualification, you can apply for a postgraduate loan to support your study costs. To find out more, see Postgraduate loans in England.
Studying with The Open University can boost your employability. OU courses are recognised and respected by employers for their excellence and the commitment they take to complete. They also value the skills that students learn and can apply in the workplace.
Over 30,000 employers have used the OU to develop staff so far. If the module you’ve chosen is geared towards your job or developing your career, you could approach your employer to see if they will sponsor you by paying some or all of the fees.
You can pay part or all of your tuition fees upfront with a debit or credit card when you register for each module.
We accept American Express, Mastercard, Visa and Visa Electron.
Please note: your permanent address/domicile will affect your fee status and, therefore, the fees you are charged and any financial support available to you. The fee information provided here is valid for modules starting before 31 July 2027. Fees typically increase annually. For further information about the University's fee policy, visit our Fee Rules.
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