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Advanced Adult Social Work PGCert
Study level: Postgraduate
This course aims to enable you as a social worker to develop your career from early social work practice through to teaching, mentoring, and assessing others.
Year of entry
2025-26
Location
Coventry University (Coventry)
Study mode
Part-time
Online/Blended
Duration
1 year part-time
2 years part-time
Course code
HLST175
Start date
September 2025
The information on this page is for 2024-25 entry and should be used as guidance for 2025-26 entry. Please keep checking back on this course page to see our latest updates.
Course overview
This Postgraduate Certificate course in Advanced Adult Social Work is designed for social workers who have completed their social work pre-registration training, are in employment, and wish to enhance their career prospects via gaining a postgraduate level qualification.
Rated Gold Overall
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023
5 QS Stars for Teaching and Facilities
QS Stars University Ratings
Top 5 Student City in England (Coventry)
QS Best Student Cities Index 2025Why you should study this course
- This course aims to develop your capacity to evaluate, review and improve approaches and systems, and apply learning effectively at an appropriate level using relevant methodologies, ensuring continuous improvement
- This course can be delivered on a part-time basis and can be taken over a one-year or two-year period to meet the needs of social workers who wish to study alongside their professional practice as part of their continuing professional development
- This course aims to provide opportunities to develop your critical understanding of global and national issues and insights of social work practice
- This course aims to give you the opportunity to become an expert practitioner, an agent of change and be ‘leadership ready’
- Opportunities may also be available within the faculty to progress your studies beyond the Postgraduate Certificate to a full master’s degree (subject to successfully completing the PGCert, an application to a master’s course and additional fees).
What you'll study
We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.
How you'll learn
The course is delivered on a part-time basis and can be taken over a one-year or two-year period to meet the needs of social workers who wish to study alongside their professional practice as part of their continuing professional development.
It will be delivered using a blended learning approach of:
- classroom teaching
- online discussions
- online tasks
- project work.
This course can be offered on a part-time basis. Whilst we would like to give you all the information about our part-time offering here, it is tailored for each course each year depending on the number of part-time applicants. Therefore, the part-time teaching arrangements vary. Request further information about part-time study.
Teaching contact hours
For the course, you will have 32 hours in seminars, 7 hours of tutorials, 10 hours in workshops, and 426 hours of work-based learning. You will also undertake 125 hours of self-guided learning.
The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.
As an innovative and enterprising institution, the University may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the University may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.
Since COVID-19, we have delivered our courses in a variety of forms, in line with public authority guidance, decisions, or orders and we will continue to adapt our delivery as appropriate. Whether on campus or online, our key priority is staff and student safety.
Assessment
This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.
Assessment methods include:
- supervision notes
- direct observation
- presentations
- written assignments
- nationally recognised portfolio.
The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.
Entry requirements
Typical offer for 2024/25 entry.
Fees and Funding
| Student | Full-time | Part-time |
|---|---|---|
| UK | Not available | 2025/26 fees TBC 2024/25 fees -£3,733 |
For advice and guidance on tuition fees3 and student loans visit our Postgraduate Finance page.
Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching, assessments, facilities and support services. There may be additional costs not covered by this fee such as accommodation and living costs, recommended reading books, stationery, printing and re-assessments should you need them.
The following are additional costs not included in the tuition fees:
- Any optional overseas field trips or visits: £400+ per trip.
*Irish student fees
The rights of Irish residents to study in the UK are preserved under the Common Travel Area arrangement. If you are an Irish student and meet the residency criteria, you can study in England, pay the same level of tuition fees as English students and utilise the Tuition Fee Loan.
**EU Support Bursary
Following the UK's exit from the European Union, we are offering financial support to all eligible EU students who wish to study an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree with us full-time. This bursary will be used to offset the cost of your tuition fees to bring them in line with that of UK students. Students studying a degree with a foundation year with us are not eligible for the bursary.
How do you know if you need to pay UK or international tuition fees?
Facilities
As this course is taken as a blend of online and in-person teaching, a large portion of it will use our online teaching platform which is currently Aula. This course is also part of the School of Psychological, Social and Behavioural Sciences and therefore any in-person teaching will take place in our school buildings. Our aim is to offer you sector-leading facilities4.
- Aula is an online teaching resource, allowing you to interact with online lectures, receive detailed feedback quickly on all assessments and communicate to your fellow students in an online learning community.
Careers and opportunities
Upon successful completion of the course, you should be able to:
- Demonstrate that you have developed your social work practice and achieved the outcomes via the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) or its equivalent
- Demonstrate that you have developed a comprehensive and critical understanding of the requirements of the Practice Education Professional Standards (PEPS) Stage 1 and their application to the theoretical underpinnings of adult learning and the supervision and assessment of others
- Demonstrate skills and knowledge aligned with the relevant levels of the Professional Capabilities Framework and the Knowledge and Skills Statements
- Evidence a critical understanding of practice education paradigms, an awareness of ethical dilemmas, and consolidate your learning around anti-oppressive practice when working with students and newly qualified social workers (NQSW).
All students on the course will already be in employment as qualified social workers. However, the course aims to enhance employability through a variety of initiatives including providing the opportunity for the further development of transferable skills (e.g. communication and assessment skills, leadership and mentoring skills).
These skills help develop the qualities needed for employment in circumstances requiring sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative in complex and unpredictable professional environments.
You will also have access to the Talent Team and can be supported with writing CVs, job applications, etc.
How to apply
UK students
Disclaimers
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