Senior Leader Apprenticeship: Management and Leadership PgDip + MSc

• Develop your employee’s management and leadership knowledge and skills, enabling them to apply best practice and be more effective within your organisation.
• Managers gain an understanding of how to develop leadership capabilities in themselves, and others, enabling them to meet your business challenges.
• Managers gain a contemporary and comprehensive knowledge of core business functions enabling them to show leading-edge insights and knowledge in a variety of management areas.
• Managers are encouraged to think strategically about business and management, and ensure organisational functions and groups are motivated and aligned to meet objectives.
• Develops your managers’ self-awareness and confidence to lead and/or operate effectively as a member of a team.

• Join a programme that provides new insights, knowledge and skills that can shape your future career.
• The collaboration of Cranfield and Grant Thornton in the delivery of this course ensures you will be exposed to industry-leading education, incorporating teaching from current practitioners, business simulations and one-to-one leadership coaching.
• Develop your understanding of core business functions and latest management thinking, while at the same time enhancing your leadership skills, and prepare yourself for future senior leader roles.
• Develop a strategic mind-set to enable the achievement of business objectives.
• Develop the self-awareness and confidence to successfully lead and operate more effectively as part of a team.
• Apply your newly acquired knowledge, skills and abilities immediately in your workplace.
• Study with a cohort of talented professionals drawn from a range of industries and backgrounds, building your network and giving insights into international practice.
• Become a member of our highly ranked alumni network and join a network of 70,000+ alumni across 169 countries.

How it is taught
Parts I and II are taught through a blended learning method which combines face-to-face teaching, online and on-the-job learning with independent self-study.

Off-the-job training
Students will spend 20% of their time on off-the-job training. This is a mandatory component of an apprenticeship that the employer must support. Some of this time will be spent on the taught element of the programme, but may also include practical training, attending meetings outside the normal job function, work shadowing, attending conferences and workshops, and time spent writing assignments.

Support for students
Students will engage regularly with a learning coach who will give guidance on how to implement their new knowledge in the workplace. Students will have set sessions with them, but they will also be able to assist with queries along the way.

Our dedicated apprenticeship tutors will support both the student and line manager through the apprenticeship programme. The tutor will meet regularly with the student, to provide guidance and support in the practical application and evidencing of the apprenticeship Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours that are required to be met before the End Point Assessment takes place.

The student will also receive additional support from their line manager. We will work with them to ensure they understand the details of the programme and format for learning as well as the requirements for off-the-job training and monitoring of progress.

On successful completion of Part I, including End Point Assessment, the student will be awarded:

• The Level 7 Senior Leader Apprenticeship
• Postgraduate Diploma in Management and Leadership

On successful completion of Part I and Part II, the student will be awarded:

• Management and Leadership MSc

The MSc has been designed in two parts. The first consists of the 20-month Senior Leader Apprenticeship programme, and the second consists of two modules and a thesis (which includes the Evidence-Based Management mandatory, attendance only, module). Part two begins after successful completion of the Apprenticeship End-point Assessment (EPA).

The MSc thesis provides students with the opportunity to deepen their skills and knowledge. Choosing an industry or work-related topic and figuring out how to approach it prepares them for project management in the workplace. Learning how to consolidate differing opinions whilst asserting their own ideas and opinions is essential in report and review writing, and in navigating difficult business discussions. Thesis writing teaches students to develop flexibility when presenting an original argument and improves time management and organization of thinking. It pushes students to express themselves authoritatively and fluently in writing.

A student undertaking study from start to finish without deferment or suspension, will complete the academic and apprenticeship elements in 26 months.