Birmingham City University
Faculty of Performance, Media and English

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Learn more about our courses at our PG Open Evening on Wed 24th April 2013 (4-7pm).

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As the driving force behind the creative provision at Birmingham City University, the Faculty of Performance, Media and English comprises four diverse and distinctive centres of creative excellence:

• Birmingham Conservatoire
• Birmingham School of Acting
• School of English
• Birmingham School of Media

In all four schools, we share a passion for excellent teaching, learning and research, and a commitment to a positive and rewarding student experience through high-quality, professionally relevant courses. From acting to creative writing, and from music to broadcast journalism, our wide choice of programmes share a strong emphasis on enabling our students to graduate as professionals in their field, able to follow challenging and rewarding career paths.

As part of their learning experience our students are strongly encouraged to interact directly with the professional environment that will become their world of work. We also support them with the necessary skills and learning for self-employment and freelance work that often forms the path to success for the creative producer and performer.

Birmingham School of Acting

This is an exciting contemporary place to train - not only for the theatre, film and television, but for associated disciplines such as Community and Applied Theatre and Dance Theatre. Our state of the art studios are second to none, and the school buzzes with creativity.

As well as all the advantages of being a student at a major university we can offer you individual care and attention and all the other benefits of studying at a specialist vocational drama school.

The school is a founder member of the Conference of Drama Schools (CDS), and its two acting courses are accredited by the National Council for Drama Training (NCDT). This means you can be assured of the quality of our training and its approval by the industry. Birmingham City University is a Skill set Academy for media, which means we are recognised as one of the top providers of training for media in the country, and the only Skill set Media Academy in the Midlands.

We have strong links with the entertainment industry, with whom we have developed courses and created student placements. As one our students you will also be invited to participate in events which embrace the arts provision across the university providing a showcase for all of our graduate talent.

If you want to see more of what we have to offer, please get in touch and come to one of our open days.

Birmingham Conservatoire

Situated in the heart of England, Birmingham Conservatoire is a place where talent develops, individual creativity flourished and successful careers begin - all against the backdrop of one of the UK's great modern cities.

Our history as the conservatoire of the Midlands stretches back nearly 150 years, to our early development as the music department of the historic Birmingham Midland Institute. Today we are a thriving international conservatoire with over 500 students on undergraduate, postgraduate and research programme, as well as a Junior department with over 200 students.

Research degrees have been offered at Birmingham Conservatoire since 1993. Research directly underpins our central mission of promoting the highest standards of artistry, technique and understanding in the practice of music of many cultural traditions.

In the 2008 Birmingham Conservatoire took part in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) which is a national audit measuring research quality across the UK education sector. The results released officially recognise Birmingham Conservatoire as a creator of world-leading research. In the assessment we have been identified as one of the top three conservatoires in the country and the best outside London.

So that we can offer you the very best professional training, we ensure the continuous development and improvement of our programmes by constantly assessing and responding to the demands of the profession. In return, we expect you to work hard, enjoy yourself and take advantage of all we have to offer.

Your time with us will be some of the most exciting of your life. Our aim is that you should leave us as a happy, confident and self-possessed musician, ready to make your make.

School of Media

Birmingham School of Media (BSM) has built a regional and national reputation for its provision of high quality media education and skills. The pillars of our success are the professionally experienced teaching staff we employ, the relevant, practice-based courses we deliver and the calibre of the graduates we produce.  Accredited by the government body Skillset, the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for Creative Media, whose aim is to ensure the UK has the most talented workforce in the world for film, television and interactive media, BSM is one of the 19 colleges and universities that work with industry to develop media training in the UK, enjoying the designation of Skillset Media Academy.

Competition for the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Media and Communications is hotly contested. The School offers a series of postgraduate courses which aims to cover the full breadth of today's media industry; new media, journalism, media photography, events and exhibition management, TV and radio production, all allied to skills of entrepreneurship and freelancing with international perspectives.

In this year's Student Satisfaction Survey Birmingham School of Media is ranked 4th in the countryfor media studies, scoring 95% for overall satisfaction, making us the highest ranked Skillset Academy in the UK.

Visit the BSM website

School of English

The School of English at Birmingham City University enjoys a strong research profile with five professors and two readers, a number of staff with internationally recognised work to their names, and a world-renowned research unit for English Language studies. Principal research clusters are in Descriptive and Historical Linguistics, the Long Eighteenth Century, and Twentieth-Century Literature and Criticism. Our work leads or informs international debate in corpus studies, language change, categorisation and narratology; it has helped to redraw the literary-critical history of the period 1660-1832; and has defined new philosophical grounds for radical and humanistic theory in the Twentieth Century.

The School offers a range of subject specialism across Literature, Language Studies, Drama and Creative Writing. At undergraduate level we also offer joint honours programmes in English and Psychology and English and Media. We provide well established MA programmes in Literary Studies and in English Linguistics (the latter by Distance Learning). The school supervises a number of research students and regularly hosts national and international conferences.

We are also home to the diploma course of the National Academy of Writing, which enables students to develop techniques and explore their talents as novelists, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, non-fiction writers and in many forms of journalism. Masterclasses are held throughout the course by Academy patrons: practising writers, many of whom are household names. Visit the School of English website.