York trip and Railway museum

Last weekend, as the grand finale to our induction week activities, students visited the historic city of York and took a trip to the National Railway Museum, the largest railway museum in the world.

The city of York is one of England's oldest and most beautiful cities, and is a mere 1 hour 45 minutes drive from us in Preston. 

York is famous for it's medieval city walls which were built nearly 2000 years ago and still in excellent condition, and York Minster; one of the world's most magnificent cathedrals.  There are a number of great, historic attractions to be seen around the city and our students enjoyed a walk around the city centre for sightseeing and shopping in the busy shopping area.

After lunch students went to the National Railway Museum, a free museum housing a number of trains and engines up to 300 years old, including the locomotive, the Flying Scotsman, and many trains from around the world. 

Our students were lucky enough to see engineers working on the Flying Scotsman as part of it's restoration project and Yohei Yasui, a Japenese student, was excited to see Japan's famous Bullet train which is one of the world's fastest trains and also the world's most punctual train.

In college we are already looking forward to our next trip..., to the home of Manchester United Football Team; Old Trafford Stadium.

Welcome back FoC UCLan!

It's a new term here at FoundationCampus UCLan, we have been joined by a new cohort of students on our January start programmes and lessons are now well under way after a very busy and eventful induction week.

Outside of our normal induction activities, such as campus and city tours, enrolling with the centre and University, police registration and subject inductions, our new students enjoyed a trip to the local bowling alley, had a getting-to-know-you pizza party, took a trip to the Trafford Centre and were also joined by September students on a trip to the historic city of York.

After all of that fun and frivolity, students are feeling well settled in and were ready to start their courses on Monday.  Good luck to all of our new students for their first term with us and welcome back returners.




 For more information on courses delivered at FoC UCLan please visit; http://www.foundationcampus.com/en/uclan/.

Christmas on campus

Here at FoundationCampus UCLan we are celebrating Christmas early; the lights are up, the tree is decorated and the Christmas music is playing for all to enjoy in the office. 

Most of our students will be returning to their home country over the Christmas period to enjoy a 4 week break before returning in the New Year.

With students from all over the world and coming from different cultural and religious backgrounds, many of them have never experienced a traditional Western Christmas before. 


Last night many of our students went out to enjoy a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey with all the trimmings.  Even some of our past students returned to join in the festivities so it was also a great opportunity for our current students to talk to them about how to make the most of their foundation year and what studying at UCLan is like.

From all of us here at FoundationCampus UCLan, we would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all!

Revision week

Now we are officially counting down at UCLan FoundationCampus; only one week to go before the start of Module 1 exams. 

This week in all of our UFP classes students are having revision lessons to prepare them for these exams which will count towards their final grade and MFP students are busy completing their first round of courseworks which are due in a week today.

Good luck to all of our students with exams next week, work hard and do your best!

Skiing and snowboarding lessons on real snow!

Wrap up warm!

On Monday a group of our students took part in skiing and snowboarding taster sessions at Manchester's Chill Factore, which is an indoor ski slope only 40 minutes drive from UCLan and at 180 metres long it is the UK's longest indoor real snow slope.

Students on the beginners slope

The group split into 4; snowboarders, absolute beginner skiers, some who had skied before and more experienced skiers.  The experienced skiers went off to enjoy the UK's longest indoor real snow slope and the rest stayed on the beginners slope to learn some techniques.

Many of the students had never seen snow before so it was a real experience.  They had a great time and many of the group are now looking forward to taking a level 1 beginners lesson in January. 

The Opportunities Centre

One of the greatest benefits to being a FoundationCampus student at UCLan is that our students have access to all of the University's facilities, like the library, sports centre and Student's Union, just like any other UCLan student.

The Opportunites Centre is a new venture for 2012/13 students and is situated in the Student's Union.  It is student run and offers advice on volunteering, careers and both academic and personal development.

Many of our students are interested in volunteering to enhance their CV and to encourage them to immerse themselves in an English speaking environment.  It is a great way for students to get some hands on experience in their chosen degree field, even before they progress onto the course, putting them at a huge advantage as they enter Year 1 of their degrees.

You can find out more about the Student's Union and see how to get involved at http://www.uclansu.co.uk/.

Harris Museum Trip for ELM students

For students who need extra English language support before joining one of our Undergraduate or Masters Foundation Programmes, or for those just wishing to study English in the UK on a University campus, we offer an English Language only module.  Students study English for 22 hours per week from IELTS level 3.0 and can study for up to 3 terms.

On Friday, English Language Module (ELM) Group 1 students visited a local museum, the Harris Museum, where they enjoyed a cultural experience in the UK in an English language learning environment - here's what they had to say about the trip;

"On Friday, 9th November, we visited the Harris Museum with our teacher Joanne.  The museum has 3 floors and a learning centre, library and small cafe downstairs.  As we went round the museum we had questions to answer and things to look out for.  It was good to practise English outseide of our usual classroom and read the information around us.

We discovered a lot of information about Preston's heritage and the local history and saw many intersting things, such as the beautiful stained glass Henry window, a model of an old factory in Preston, a doll's house, skulls and even a collection of old mobile phones!

One of the best things was the skeleton of 'The Poulton Elk', which was discovered buried under a house in Preston.

We also saw some historical costumes and had a talk in the art gallery with a museum assisstant.  He explained a lot to us about the works of art we saw.

We really enjoyed the trip and we are looking forward to visiting somewhere else to find out more about Preston."

For more information and photos please take a look at this short presentation; The Harris Museum, prepared by one of our ELM students, Hatim Aloqalaa.  Thank you Hatim!