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Teaching

You are taught through a combination of interactive lectures, seminars, workshops and practical courtroom exercises. Interactive lecture sessions take a variety of formats and are intended to enable the application of learning through discussion and small group activities. Seminars enable the discussion and development of understanding of topics covered in lectures, and wider activities – such as those within the mock courtroom – are focused on developing subject-specific skills and graduate skills.

In addition, meetings with Personal Academic Tutors are scheduled on at least four occasions in the first year and three occasions in each of the other years of a course.

The ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ places emphasis on enabling students to develop the independent learning capabilities that will equip them for lifelong learning and future employment, as well as academic achievement. A mixture of independent study, teaching and academic support from Student Services and Library Services, and also the Personal Academic Tutoring system enables students to reflect on progress and build up a profile of skills, achievements and experiences that will help them to flourish and be successful.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have around 12 contact hours of teaching. Typically class contact time will be structured around:

• One 2 hour lecture
• One 1 hour seminar

Independent self-study

In addition to contact time, you are expected to undertake around 25 hours of personal self-study per week. Typically, this will involve completing online activities, 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.

Duration

3 years full-time; 4-6 years part-time

Timetables

Timetables are normally available one month before registration. Please note that whilst we try to be as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week; and some classes can be scheduled in the evenings.

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 senior academics and legal practitioners with professional experience.

Teaching is informed by research and consultancy, and 85% of course lecturers have a higher education teaching qualification or are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy.

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 include written examinations and a range of coursework assessments such as essays, reports, portfolios, courtroom activities, interviewing and advising, political discourse analysis, presentations and a final year independent studies project.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the mandatory and optional modules taken, but a typical formal summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:

Year 1

• 3 formal examinations of 2 hours duration
• 4 essays/discussion papers
• 1 Court Report
• 1 Moot
• 1 Portfolio

Year 2

• 3 formal examinations of 2 hours duration
• 4 essays
• 1 interviewing and advising exercise
• 1 individual presentation
• 1 political discourse analysis
• 1 report

Year 3

• 3 formal examinations of 3 hours duration
• 4 essays
• 1 interviewing and advising exercise
• 2 individual presentations
• 1 political discourse analysis

Programme specification

If you would like to see a full programme specification for this course, please email AcademicQualityTeam@worc.ac.uk