Counselling FdSc

Teaching

You are taught through a combination of experiential workshops, lectures, seminars and practical sessions. Experiential workshops take a variety of formats and are intended to encourage learning through experiencing and the exploration of personal awareness through this process. Seminars enable the discussion and development of understanding of topics covered in lectures, and skills practice sessions are focused on developing counselling skills and the application of theory into practice.

In addition, meetings with your personal academic tutor are scheduled on at least 4 occasions in the first year and three occasions in the second year.

You have the opportunity to undertake a work-based learning placement of 50hrs in the first year of the course, incorporating a work-related project supervised by a work-based mentor and the course tutor.

In the second year, you have the opportunity to undertake a counselling placement of 100hrs, overseen by work-based supervisors and the course tutor.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have 6.5 contact hours of teaching (with additional tutorial time). The precise contact hours will depend on the scheduled activities and in the final year you will normally have slightly less contact time in order to undertake more independent study.

Typically class contact time will be structured around:

• 2 hours of experiential workshops
• 1 hour of lectures (whole group)
• 1 hour of seminars in groups of around 4 students
• 1.5 hours of supervised counselling skills practice
• 1 hour of counselling supervision

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to undertake around 12 hours of personal self-study per week. Typically, this will involve completing reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for examinations.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities, including the Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources.

As part of your development in self-awareness, you are required to undertake 20 hours of personal therapy in each year of the course.

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes highly qualified therapists and experienced academics, together with supervision expertise and technical support.

Teaching is informed by research and consultancy, with 80 per cent of course lecturers having undertaken postgraduate research and have a higher education teaching qualification.

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or 'formative' assignments. Each module has one or more formal or 'summative' assessments which are graded and count towards the overall module grade.

Assessment methods comprise a range of coursework assessments such as journals, personal-development plans, reflective reports, leaflet design, portfolios, case studies and presentations, as well as counselling skills assessments. In the first year there is an independent work-based learning project and in the second year an independent research project.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the year of study: The formal summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:

Year 1

• 1 x 2 journal extracts
• 1 personal-development plan
• 1 individual presentation
• 2 group presentations
• 5 reflective reports
• 1 counselling skills assessment
• 1 work-based learning portfolio (including project report)

Year 2

• 1 x 2 journal extracts
• 1 personal-development plan
• 2 individual presentations
• 2 reflective reports
• 1 leaflet design
• 1 case study
• 2 counselling skills assessments
• 1 counselling placement portfolio (including reflective report)
• 1 independent research project (including research proposal)

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments, counselling skills and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutor and module tutors as appropriate.

We aim to provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.