Occupational Therapy
Work towards a rewarding career in occupational therapy and make a positive impact on the quality of life for individuals, communities, and populations.
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Key Course Details
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Start Date
September
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Location
Pontypridd
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Campus Code
A
Fees
Home students
£785*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
As an occupational therapist you will enable and empower individuals, communities, and populations to live their best lives at home, at work and everywhere else, helping others to overcome daily challenges, whether learning at school, going to work, playing sport or simply doing the dishes.
DESIGNED FOR
This part-time Occupational Therapy course is designed to enable you to develop the skills, knowledge and experience required to practice as an occupational therapist across a diverse range of practice environments.
Accredited by
- The Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT)
Skills taught
- Effective and efficient communication
- Professional reasoning skills
- Practical skills of assessment, planning, intervention and critical evaluation
- Creativity and innovation
- Interprofessional working and compassionate leadership
Course Highlights
Module Overview
The BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy course is a 4-year part-time degree course, delivered over four years. Each academic level will be delivered over a 16-month period.
Note: this is more condensed than the 24-month normal study duration for part-time.
When enrolled on the course, you are eligible to become a student member of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (subject to application and additional costs may apply).
- Promoting Health and Wellbeing through Occupational Therapy: individuals, communities, and populations.
- Foundations of Contemporary Occupational Therapy Practice.
- Bio-psycho-social Foundations for Occupational Participation.
- Assessment and Planning to Promote Occupational Engagement and Participation: individuals, communities, and populations.
- Developing Confidence in Occupational Therapy Practice
- There will also be a 3-week part-time placement – Experiential Placement
- Developing Confidence in Occupational Therapy Practice
- Disruptors and Enhancers to Occupational Engagement and Participation in the Younger Person
- Disruptors and Enhancers to Occupational Engagement and Participation in Adults
- Professional, Legal and Ethical Issues in Occupational Therapy
- Informed Decision Making in Practice
- There will also be a 10-week part-time placement – Assessment and Planning
- Informed Decision Making in Practice
- Disruptors and Enhancers to Occupational Engagement and Participation in Older Adults
- Evidence and Research Based Practice 1: delivering safe and effective services
- Addressing the Complexities of Occupational Therapy Practice.
- Becoming an Autonomous Occupational Therapist
- There will also be a 10-week fulltime placement – Intervention
- Becoming an Autonomous Occupational Therapist
- Emerging Occupational Therapy Practice
- Enhancing Employability as an Occupational Therapist
- Evidence and Research Based Practice 2: initiating and managing evidence-based change and compassionate leadership on occupational therapy practice
- There will also be a 12-week full-time placement – Critical Evaluation.
Course Highlights
How you’ll learn
The course is designed using a blended approach to enable learning to be as flexible as possible whilst maintaining a sense of belonging within the cohort population.
The delivery schedule will be designed to bring students face-to-face for workshops, seminars and some group and tutorial study, however where possible, students will be facilitated to adopt flexible approaches to time place and mode of study, utilising technologies to enable remote learning and in turn build the students’ digital fluency.
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Teaching staff
The core teaching team are registered occupational therapists who bring a wealth of experience from across a diverse range of settings
As part of our commitment to interprofessional learning students are also fortunate to benefit from the expertise of education staff from a range of health and social care course form across USW.
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Placements
There are four professional practice placements integrated throughout the course providing 1,069 hours of scheduled practice-based learning. In the first two years these will be part-time (18.75hrs), whilst in year three and four they will be full-time (37.5hrs). These provide opportunities for you to develop professional competence and a professional identity in a range of health and social care settings.
Most placements will be local, within a thirty-mile radius of the University. Where placements are over 30 miles from the University, temporary accommodation will be offered. Every effort will be made to source Welsh speaking placements for students who request a bilingual learning opportunity.
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Facilities
The course benefits from extensive clinical simulation facilities and a community flat simulation area in which a range of practical skills are taught, practised and examined.
The University has an extensive range of partner organisations, including and extending beyond health and social care partners, to deliver a high-quality placement programme.
For some elements of your course, you will be taught interprofessionally alongside Physiotherapists, Nurses, Midwives, Operating Department Practitioners and will benefit from the holistic understanding this brings.
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ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
UCAS Points: 120 (or above)
Typical qualification requirements:
- A Level: BBB to exclude General Studies
- Welsh BACC: Grade B and BB at A Level to exclude General Studies
- BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Distinction, Distinction, Merit
- Access to HE: Science/Mathematics/Health Care/Nursing Diploma. Must complete 120 credits overall with at least 45 at level 3 and 15 at Level 2. Of the 45 credits at level 3, you will need a minimum of 24 Distinctions, 18 Merits and 3 passes.
Interview:
Applicants are invited to a multi mini modal interview. You will be required to demonstrate a real insight to, and enthusiasm for, the discipline. You should learn as much as you can about the profession, including where practitioners practice, and their role in modern healthcare. You must also demonstrate insight to your organisational skills and ability to effectively manage your studies. You will be required to demonstrate values in accordance with the HCPC (2016) Standards of conduct, performance and ethics.
- Friday 28th March 2025
- Friday 4th April 2025
- Friday 11th April 2025
Applications for this course for September 2025 entry will close on Friday 14th March 2025.
Additional requirements include:
- The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
- Equivalent qualifications considered are Essential Skills Level Two in Communication and Application of Number, or Functional Skills Level Two in English and Maths. (Must be achieved within the last 3 years).
- One satisfactory reference to be uploaded with application.
- A satisfactory Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service* (DBS) check on the Child & Adult Workforce and Child and Adult Barring Lists and subscription to the DBS Update Service and an Occupational Health clearance. All applicants are required to sign a declaration of Fitness to Practise at Interview and encourage students to have a flu vaccination.
- *Please note any disclosed police record will be assessed in line with the USW Fitness to Practise process and the requirements of HCPC, to check the potential of successful professional registration with the Regulator upon graduation from the course.
- Unfortunately as this course is funded by the NHS and students have to have placements in the local NHS Health Board we are unable to accept applications from international/EU students.
Closed for International applicants
Unfortunately, this course is not currently open to international applicants, please visit our course pages where you can find an alternative course choice.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended for example), your experiences, individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example), and work experience.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
£785
per 20 credits*Additional Costs
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
*Obligatory
Students will be expected to pay for a DBS or certificate of good behaviour from their home country. The DBS fee includes £49.50 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee
Cost: £64.74
Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £16. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate
Cost: £16
Many students will use their vehicle for practice placement. Business insurance is required and the cost will vary depending on the insurance company.
Cost: Variable
University Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.
Life at USW
Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.
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How to apply
You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, or if you’re seeking advanced entry.. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time.)
Advanced entry
If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
