Course Assessments and Requirements
You will find full details of each of these in your handbook, including when and how to submit written assignments. Some of these assessments will be formative (designed to give you feedback on your performance and how it can be improved) and others, summative (designed to measure the extent to which you have achieved the learning outcomes of the module). In your handbook, you will find an assessment grid for each year of study which outlines which assessments are formative and which summative. While all assessments must be passed, summative assessments will be awarded an overall grade.
When assessing your work, we use a marking sheet that is based on both a 20-Point Scale and the QAA Level descriptors that are prescribed for your level of study. A copy of the marking sheet can be found in the useful forms section on Moodle.
In addition to the course assessments, there are a number of requirements that you must fulfil. These are as follows.
Personal counselling or psychotherapy
A requirement of the course is that you will remain in weekly personal psychotherapy (if on a psychotherapy course) or counselling or psychotherapy (if on a counselling course) throughout the entire training, and so in excess of 100+ hours will normally be accrued by the oral examination for counselling students and 160+ for psychotherapy students. Your therapist must be properly accredited and qualified, in accordance with your course requirements, which must be confirmed in writing during the first few weeks of your course, and they will need to provide evidence that the required sessions have been attended by signing your end-of-year form.
Clinical Practice
From the second year onwards you will be required to start seeing clients (18+). As well as our in-house clinic, where several students undertake their first placement, we have some excellent resources to help you find placements, including dedicated clinical placements and development officers and a placement database and noticeboard. Counselling students will be required to gain a minimum of 150 hours before taking their final exams, and psychotherapy students will be required to gain 450 hours (750 hours for TA students). These hours need to be gained through face-to-face work with adult clients. Your supervisor will be required to regularly sign your clinical practice log to evidence compliance with this requirement.
Mental Health Familiarisation Placement
All psychotherapy students (unless they have substantial previous experience of mental health systems) need to undertake a Mental Health Familiarisation Placement. This placement is usually undertaken sometime during the final two years of your course and usually on a weekday. The general aim of the Placement is for candidates to gain familiarity with, and first-hand experience of, the thinking and clinical methods used in the psychiatric profession and the main mental health delivery systems in Britain, as well as the Mental Health Act.