Goodbye September MFP!

Party time

Today is the last day of lessons for our September start MFP students.  They have sat through their last lessons, delivered their final presentations and uploaded the last of their coursework to Turnitin for assessment.

It's been a challenging but enjoyable year for all concerned but our students have been looking very pleased with themselves all week.

Today students had a mini presentation with their English teachers, Sam and Nicola, who presented them with certificates relating to their experiences at UCLan.  It was all good fun and students received awards for their individual contribution to their group.  Awards that were given out included 'Class Clown,' 'Most Competitive,' 'Best Shoes' and 'Worst Tuesday Morning Attendance.'

Students pose with their teacher, Nicola, and their certificates

Many of our students will also be out tonight celebrating their achievements with some of their teachers.

Now they are eagerly awaiting their scores and crossing their fingers that every one of them progresses to UCLan in September to undertake their chosen Master's degree, but they will have to wait until our graduation ceremony on 21st June to find out just how well they have done. 

Congratulations on a great year; it has been a pleasure to have you all around the centre.  Good luck and do come back and visit us next year!

Going to the Zoo

Last week our English Language Module (ELM) Higher Group students visited Blackpool and went on a class trip to the zoo.  They enjoyed great weather, a trip down the Blackpool strip to the famous Blackpool Tower and had some free time to go shopping.

To ensure their fun day out incorporated a great deal of language learning, students were put into mixed nationality groups so they had to speak English to each other and were given worksheets to complete on their trip round the zoo which was followed by a quiz.  Students also had to buy their own lunch and souvenirs, take the bus and ask questions in English.




What is Blackpool rock?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_(confectionery)

This was a great opportunity for students learning English to put some of their classroom learning into a real life setting and gave them a great deal of confidence in interacting with different people to meet necessary aims; eating, getting from one place to another etc.



Students reported that they had a really good day out.  Blackpool is a traditional British seaside resort which they had the pleasure of visiting and as a bonus, students were treated to a stick of Blackpool rock by their teacher Victoria.

Previous students return to FoC

Betty Yang (far left) with MFP Management class

Yesterday we were visited by some previous MFP students who are currently studying on Masters programmes at UCLan.  They came in to talk to our current students about their experiences and to give some advice about how to make the most out of the MFP, how best to prepare for a UCLan Masters and to talk about the benefits of being a foundation student.

Current students had an opportunity to ask questions about their future at UCLan and to talk about their time with us on the foundation course to students who had been in the same position as them only a year ago.  They asked questions such as 'How many hours do you study per week at UCLan?' 'What was the most difficult thing about the MFP and what is the most difficult thing about doing a Master's?' and 'How did you improve your speaking and listening skills?' 

The students who returned spoke very positively of the friendships they made here and the benefit they received to their essay writing practice and use of the library.   They felt studying on the foundation course gave them an upper hand on students who had no experience of UCLan when they started their Masters degree and that the subjects they studied here gave them a good foundation to build on in further study.

Last week Anton Mishechkin, a former UFP student who is now in his first year of BA (Hons) Business and Management at UCLan, also came to speak to our current UFP Business students about his experiences and we are expecting some more visitors throughout the week. 

These sessions provide a great opportunity for current students to get some perspective and to realise why they are studying the Foundation course and the benefits it will bring next year.  This provides a good boost to students' morale and motivation just a few weeks before many of them take their final exams.

Department visits at UCLan

When students study an Undergraduate Foundation Programme or Master's Foundation Programme at FoundationCampus UCLan they have guaranteed progression to their choice of UCLan's Bachelor's or Master's degree upon successful completion of the course.

There are a wide range of degrees available as automatic progression routes and if any potential student wants to go onto a course which doesn't have prior agreement we are able to approach the University to arrange this in agreement with the course leader of the degree.

As we have such strong links with the University our students also have the benefit of meeting their course leader and visiting the department that they will join before they begin the course the following year.

This gives the student a great insight into what is involved in the course and what their environment will be when they go onto their University programme taking the nerves out of the next step.

Students have had visits to the Business School, Art Department, Law School and School of Forensic and Investigative Sciences (FIS).

Last week a group of future Fire Engineering students met with Shephard Ndlovu, a senior lecturer in the School of FIS, to talk about their degree.  They were given a presentation on the course content and the use of fire engineering in the real world. 

Following that they had a tour of one of the fire labs and were shown a great deal of equipment which they will use in practical lessons as part of the course.  Shephard demonstrated one of the pieces of machinery which they will use to study the behaviour of fire in order to learn how to manage and control fire in different settings.

It was a very interesting and informative trip and students felt it was great benefit to them, motivating them to work even harder in the last leg of their course with us. 

Good luck to all of our students who will be joining UCLan next year, we are sure that they will enjoy it.

Potato stamping in UFP Physics

Our UFP Physics class found themselves having a messy time on Friday when they were asked to create elements demonstrating the differences in protons, neutrons and electrons which make up different atoms.

They used hand paints and potato stamps to create pictures of elements and each colour represented the particles which it consisted of in varying amounts. 

Jonathan Partington, our UFP Physics teacher, told us that 'atoms are made up of protons and neutrons in the nucleus and a cloud of electrons surrounding the nucleus. Some atoms have isotopes, which have the same number of protons and electrons but different numbers of neutrons.

What we were doing was to make pictures of atoms with different isotopes. Each person had a different element and should have produced two different forms of it, with the same number of protons and electrons but different neutrons.'

Interactive learning is a great way to get students actively involved in their lesson material and most importantly make learning fun.  Well done class the pictures look great.

Jonathan, bottom middle, with his UFP Physics class