What will I learn?

Our Physical Sciences IFP is designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills to be able to progress on to a range of Chemistry and associated degree courses at university. You will consider the key principles of these sciences and develop your theoretical knowledge and also your practical skills in the subjects.

Throughout the course you will also be developing your communication and team-working skills, which will be vital in your degree studies and throughout your career.

How will I learn?

You will be taught through a combination of lectures and seminars, which is the same type of teaching you can expect at undergraduate level in the UK.

Lectures are where all students on a module are together (this can be up to 100 students on the IFP), and the academic tutor introduces the topic of study. Seminars are much smaller groups (typically no more than 15 students), where you have the opportunity to explore a subject in more detail with your academic tutor and classmates. In your seminars, you will be expected to engage in discussions and debates around the subject matter.

On the Physical Sciences IFP there will also be some practical lessons in Chemistry and Physics Labs.

How will I be assessed?

Across your modules you will be assessed through a range of methods including presentations, tests, reports and examinations.

The modules on this programme have been developed to give you a thorough preparation for a range of related undergraduate degrees.

Mathematics for Science
This module is designed to provide you with the key foundational mathematical understanding required to progress to a wide range of science-facing undergraduate disciplines, including physics, engineering, chemistry and life sciences. You will develop your ability to represent a situation mathematically and use the skills learnt in unstructured problems, whilst continuing to increase your awareness of the relevance of mathematics to other fields of study.

Chemistry
With an emphasis on the development of students’ scientific skills, this module will focus on competences such as evidence based reasoning, the application of quantitative analysis to interpret chemical data and the evaluation of experimental design. Chemistry is an evidence based science discipline and there will be a strong experimental element to this module. In this progressive module students will also look at how Chemical applications can be used to solve societal problems.

Our Inquiry and Research Skills for Science is a core module on this course, and is delivered in two parts to complement your other modules. The first part of this module looks at developing core research and inquiry skills including academic searching, using sources, teamwork, reflection and problem based learning inquiries. The second part of the module allows you to put everything you have learnt into practice through a research based project.

In addition to the above modules, students on this route will also study a half module entitled An Introduction to Programming and an additional Chemistry Labs half module.

All students will also study an English for Academic Purposes module. This module is not about developing your conversational or everyday English skills; instead, it will develop your Academic English skills. You will consider how academic essays should be written, including looking at appropriate referencing and paraphrasing, as well as thinking about how presentations should be delivered in an academic context.

Those students who require additional support to improve their IELTS scores will also study one of our IELTS modules. Students joining the course as native speakers or with an IELTS of 7.0 with 6.5 in components will not be required to take an IELTS module.

Please note that given the interval between the publication of these modules and enrolment, some of the information may change. You can find out more by reading our terms and conditions.

A list of our entry requirements, according to country, is available on our Application Information pages.

If you apply to this course, your Mathematics and Chemistry grades will be required to be at a high level and achieving specific grades in Mathematics and Chemistry may be a condition of your offer.

If you have any questions about your qualifications and whether they are suitable for this course, please contact the team.

Students on this course would typically be looking to progress to a range of undergraduate degrees such as Chemistry.