Clinical Education PGCert

Course overview

This course is for our January 2026 start date. To apply for our January 2025 start date, please visit here .

This course is taught fully online.

Our Clinical Education PGCert is an interprofessional programme designed to develop healthcare professionals into exceptional education practitioners. Our course provides a responsive, work-related and academically robust route for all healthcare practitioners who engage with teaching and learning. Irrespective of whether you're from a clinical settings or a Higher Education institution, this course will develop your understanding of the education and assessment pedagogies of the next generation of clinical practitioners.

Develop your skills and understanding of the core concepts of clinical education and learn from expert academics and clinicians from the Faculty of Medicine and Health and practitioners from NHS Trusts.

With us, you will:

• Debate and discuss the central themes and issues in clinical education.

• Make critical and creative connections between policy, educational theory and your own practice.

Our course is rooted in workplace learning, encouraging you to make critical and creative connections between your own – and your students’ – practice and theoretical perspectives on teaching, learning and assessment.

The course received Higher Education Academy accreditation at Level 2 of the Professional Standards Framework for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in 2010. Recognition as a Fellow is available to all students who successfully complete the course.

A one-off fee is payable by students who do not hold a current teaching contract with a subscribing higher education institution. The course was successfully revalidated in 2023.

Course details

Our course has been designed with the needs of healthcare practitioners in mind. This means we’ll help you to critically analyse your own practice as a clinical educator. Throughout your studies, you’ll evaluate a range of educational theories and strategies in reference to teaching, learning and assessment in the clinical context and apply these ideas to the development of your own teaching practice.

There is direct observation of your teaching in practice, and regular opportunities for peer reviewing of your teaching practice (micro-teaching). There is a high level of support for academic skills development, both to help you to fulfil your potential on this course and promote your further development and progression. You will have an inspirational experience of research-led teaching, which you'll seek to emulate in your own clinical education context.

Learning & Teaching in the Clinical Context – This module adopts a practice-based and inter-professional approach to clinical education in the workplace and higher education institutions. We introduce the concept of learning and teaching as situated social practice and invite participants to explore their own learning and teaching experiences throughout the module.

The content of the module includes analysis of various ways of designing sessions, courses or programmes, the introduction and evaluation of a range of learning and teaching strategies, including discussion of the educational theories which underpin them and opportunities to apply this knowledge in practical exercises.

We encourage students to integrate the skills and knowledge introduced during the module into their practice as educators, and support their development as advocates for learning across, as well as within, their own clinical profession.

Assessment & Evaluation in the Clinical Context – This module adopts a practice-based and inter-professional approach to the assessment and evaluation of clinical education in the workplace and higher education institutions.

Participants are encouraged to draw on and present their own experience as learning opportunities throughout the module. The content of the module includes introducing the principles of good practice in assessment, the evaluation of a range of assessment strategies, critical analysis of current research into assessment and opportunities to apply this knowledge in practical exercises. We encourage students to integrate the skills and knowledge introduced during the module into their practice.

Observation of Teaching

The observation of teaching is central to your success on the Clinical Education PGCert course. It is an opportunity for you to bring together all the ideas and learning encountered through the course and to demonstrate your understanding of the Higher Education Academy UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learners in higher education. It provides an opportunity to develop and try out new perspectives and approaches to learning, teaching and assessment with the support and guidance of your tutor. The purpose of observing your teaching is to engage you in a reflective, developmental process that enables you to consider your teaching and professional practice and identify ways in which it can be developed.

Please read our FAQs document which we hope answers some of your questions about the course.

Please contact the clinical education team on clinicaleducation@leeds.ac.uk should you have any queries. The academic team can provide advice on attendance concerns.

Course structure

The list shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our terms and conditions.

For more information and a full list of typical modules available on this course, please read Clinical Education PGCert in the course catalogue

Year 1 compulsory modules

Learning and teaching

Demonstrating our philosophy of interprofessional education, you'll be taught by expert academics and clinicians from the Faculty of Medicine and Health and practitioners from NHS Trusts. Learning and teaching emphasises participative, learner-centred and active learning approaches and introduces you to a range of learning and teaching modes and strategies.

Our learning approaches include seminars, tutorials, enquiry-based learning, peer learning and assessment, collaborative learning, peer and tutor assessed micro-teaching and observed teaching in practice.

Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

Claim for Recognition : If you successfully complete the Clinical Education PGCert, you are eligible to apply for Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

On this course, you’ll be taught by our expert academics, from lecturers through to professors. You may also be taught by industry professionals with years of experience, as well as trained postgraduate researchers, connecting you to some of the brightest minds on campus.

Fees

UK: £4,750 (Total)

International: £11,000 (Total)

Additional cost information

There may be additional costs related to your course or programme of study, or related to being a student at the University of Leeds. Read more on our living costs and budgeting page .