MSc Occupational Therapy (February Start)
Key Details
- Attendance
- Full Time
- Award
- Degree of Master of Science
- Course Length
- 2 years
- Course Start Date
- February 2024
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Course Overview
The central theory of occupational therapy is that all humans are occupational beings and we all engage in meaningful activities to live a fulfilling life. As such, activity itself can be used to aid rehabilitation and independent living. Occupational therapists work closely with people who have an illness, injury or disability to help them live their lives to their full potential. You could be helping a child with a learning disability, a young person with anorexia, or an elderly person to recover from a stroke. Occupational therapy is extremely varied and requires ‘out of the box’ thinking alongside professional reasoning. Our course prepares you for an exciting and rewarding career.
You’ll join a community of enthusiastic students, lecturers and educators and a very active Occupational Therapy Society. You will be taught within a multi-professional health school, so you will be well-equipped for working in contemporary healthcare settings once you graduate. Our course will enable you to deliver excellent, person-centred, inter-professional practice.
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Occupational therapists are qualified to work in a uniquely varied range of settings, and our two-year, full-time course will teach you how to apply professional reasoning, drawing on human sciences, occupational therapy theory, psychology, sociology and creativity. Respectful relationships with service users are at the heart of occupational therapy practice and at the heart of our programme throughout. As a result, we have Experts by Experience sessions where service users speak to you about their experience of their condition.
Our Master’s programme is open to arts, science, healthcare and humanities graduates. If you are hoping to pursue a career in occupational therapy, our enquiry based-style of learning will shape your understanding of the profession, and underpin it with knowledge of human sciences and therapeutic approaches.
Our active learning approach is designed to engage you cognitively, emotionally and spiritually, so you develop your professional identity as an occupational therapist and gain the skills to use yourself therapeutically within health and social care settings. Throughout the programme, you will have a personal advisor who will help you reflect on your highs and lows, enabling you to learn from both. You will also learn how to use professional development tools to identify your personal learning needs and goals.
Your time with us will be split between university-based learning and practice-based learning. We have a dedicated placement team, who work closely with our practice partners to set up a balanced range of placement experiences for you. While on placement, you will be allocated a dedicated educational supervisor; a qualified occupational therapist, who will support you as you apply your knowledge and gain skills and confidence. Your practice educator will be experienced in judging your needs and will help you to challenge yourself.
We also provide the exciting opportunity for you to take ownership of your professional development and arrange your final eight-week placement in a specialist field you are passionate about or haven’t yet experienced.
The course provides four practice placement experiences across the two years. The structure of each year and use of Enquiry Based Learning enables you to develop your core skills prior to Practice Placement 1 and then develop complex therapeutic skills by your final Professional Development placement.
Practice placements are designed to give students the skills to work across NHS, independent, private and third sector settings which reflect the contexts of future health and social care. This range of experiences will develop your flexibility and transferable skills. All students will undertake their placements within the same timeframe, and will be completing a minimum of 37.5 hours assessed practice, including 3.5 hours of portfolio development per week. You will arrange your own final eight-week placement, which could take place in the UK or abroad. However, overseas travel can put additional demands on students, so we ask to be consulted on any such plans and may advise against overseas travel in some circumstances.
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Study and Modules
Structure
Our two-year, full-time programme encompasses 45 weeks of learning each year. This includes three to four weeks of reading to prepare for assessments and placements, as well as time to consolidate knowledge.
The whole programme adopts an enquiry-based learning (EBL) structure (McLean, Gibbs 2010) whereby students learn in a facilitated student-centred way, with learning outcomes influenced by the requisite standards of proficiency. This approach enables the development of independent learning, problem solving and decision-making skills. There will be an evolving level of difficulty in the prompt material, from straightforward cases that develop baseline theoretical and therapeutic understandings through to complex scenarios addressing service development needs. The range of teaching methods includes workshops, practical sessions, student led study, project work, tutorials, cadaver dissection, seminars, student-generated handouts, 1:1 student/advisor meetings and interprofessional learning groups.
Compulsory Modules
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Qualified occupational therapists need to integrate their knowledge and apply it to patients, so we mirror this in our teaching by focusing on enquiry-based learning (EBL). You will be involved in a combination of occupational therapy-specific activities and sessions working with physiotherapy students.
You will take part in fortnightly EBL sessions, working with a small group of fellow students on a scenario drawn from real-world experiences. From each scenario, you will need to work out your learning goals: imagine you have to treat this person, what do you need to know? This, in turn, will trigger the learning activities for the following fortnight.
Each fortnight will include a combination of self-directed study, staff-facilitated learning and student-led feedback sessions. During this time, you will work on a learning goal, typically with another student, looking for important information and searching for evidence. You will then pass your learning onto your peers in the way you feel is most appropriate. For example, you could run an experiential activity, facilitate a critical discussion, or give a presentation. Your staff facilitator will then provide individual feedback on what went well and how you could develop.
Independent study
Self-directed study and collaboration with peers is an integral part of our Master’s programme. Your lecturers will provide resources to facilitate the core activities via our Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), but integrating knowledge from a wide range of sources will be actively encouraged.
The accelerated nature of our programme means that you will also need to manage your time effectively.
Assessment
Our assessments are designed to develop and test your communication skills, and your ability to synthesise and articulate knowledge at Master’s level.
Assessment methods will include practical skill oral examinations, written essays, reflective accounts, posters and case-management presentations. Your assignments will be marked against the Senate Scale for Master’s-level work, but your practice placements will be marked at undergraduate level as pass/fail, with feedback offered on performance.
Structure
Our two-year, full-time programme encompasses 45 weeks of learning each year. This includes three to four weeks of reading to prepare for assessments and placements, as well as time to consolidate knowledge.
The whole programme adopts an enquiry-based learning (EBL) structure (McLean, Gibbs 2010) whereby students learn in a facilitated student-centred way, with learning outcomes influenced by the requisite standards of proficiency. This approach enables the development of independent learning, problem solving and decision-making skills. There will be an evolving level of difficulty in the prompt material, from straightforward cases that develop baseline theoretical and therapeutic understandings through to complex scenarios addressing service development needs. The range of teaching methods includes workshops, practical sessions, student led study, project work, tutorials, cadaver dissection, seminars, student-generated handouts, 1:1 student/advisor meetings and interprofessional learning groups.
Compulsory Modules
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Qualified occupational therapists need to integrate their knowledge and apply it to patients, so we mirror this in our teaching by focusing on enquiry-based learning (EBL). You will be involved in a combination of occupational therapy-specific activities and sessions working with physiotherapy students.
You will take part in fortnightly EBL sessions, working with a small group of fellow students on a scenario drawn from real-world experiences. From each scenario, you will need to work out your learning goals: imagine you have to treat this person, what do you need to know? This, in turn, will trigger the learning activities for the following fortnight.
Each fortnight will include a combination of self-directed study, staff-facilitated learning and student-led feedback sessions. During this time, you will work on a learning goal, typically with another student, looking for important information and searching for evidence. You will then pass your learning onto your peers in the way you feel is most appropriate. For example, you could run an experiential activity, facilitate a critical discussion, or give a presentation. Your staff facilitator will then provide individual feedback on what went well and how you could develop.
Independent study
Self-directed study and collaboration with peers is an integral part of our Master’s programme. Your lecturers will provide resources to facilitate the core activities via our Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), but integrating knowledge from a wide range of sources will be actively encouraged.
The accelerated nature of our programme means that you will also need to manage your time effectively.
Assessment
Our assessments are designed to develop and test your communication skills, and your ability to synthesise and articulate knowledge at Master’s level.
Assessment methods will include practical skill oral examinations, written essays, reflective accounts, posters and case-management presentations. Your assignments will be marked against the Senate Scale for Master’s-level work, but your practice placements will be marked at undergraduate level as pass/fail, with feedback offered on performance
Entry Requirements
- Degree Classification
- Bachelors (Hons) degree - 2.1 or equivalent from a recognised Higher Education institution. Applicants with a 2.2 or equivalent may be considered if they have strong relevant work experience.
- GCSE
- Applicants will be required to have a minimum of GCSE Maths and English at Grade 4 / C or equivalent.
- English Foreign Language
We welcome applications from students whose first language is not English or those whose degree was not taught in English.
To ensure such students benefit fully from postgraduate study, we require evidence of proficiency in English.
Our minimum entry requirements are as follows:-
IELTS: 7.0 overall with a minimum of 6.5 in all components
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Pearson (PTE): 76 overall with a minimum of 67 in all components.
All test scores must be less than two years old.
Other tests, including Cambridge English exams and the Trinity Integrated Skills in English are also accepted by the university. The full list of accepted tests can be found here: Accepted English Language Tests.
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- Interviews
The strongest applicants will be invited to interview. Please note that meeting the minimum academic entry requirements will not guarantee that you will be selected for interview. Interview invitations will be sent by email. Please keep a close eye on all emails from UEA after you submit your application.
Note that we will not disclose interview questions in advance of the interviews, but in general terms the interviews will explore a range of issues, including your suitability for the profession and the NHS values (as reflected in the NHS constitution). We’ll look to consider your motivation to study this course, as well as whether you have an interest in people and a clear understanding of the profession (ideally with relevant voluntary or paid work in healthcare).
Applicants will be offered an online interview.
- Intakes
Please note this course is now closed.
The annual intake for this course is in February each year.
Additional Information or Requirements
You must have graduated within 10 years of the start date of the course, or be able to provide relevant evidence of further study or experience.
You must also have a profile of secondary qualifications in arts and sciences (A-level or equivalent).
You need to have minimum grade C/4 (or equivalent) in GCSE Science, Maths and English.
Our admissions criteria also include requirements such as: a clear understanding of Occupational Therapy; a broad range of relevant work shadowing; an interest in people and a strong academic attainment.
It is normal for undergraduate students to apply for entry to postgraduate programmes in their final year of study. Applicants who have not yet been awarded a degree may be offered a place conditional on their attaining a particular class of degree.
Please note, If you are already a qualified Occupational Therapist this course is not suitable and you may wish to consider our other professional health courses delivered at Degree and Master’s level.
International students
We have a number of places available for students from outside the UK. The School of Health Sciences offers a high quality educational experience for international postgraduates. Potential candidates need to be able to demonstrate the high academic credentials required for the course, as well as good English Language qualifications.
The pre-registration courses offered in the School of Health Sciences are approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and after successfully completing an accredited pre-registration programme such as ours you must apply to register with the HCPC in order to work as a registered healthcare professional in the UK. This course equips you with the skills necessary to practise as an occupational therapist both internationally and in the UK. International students who complete the course will be eligible to apply to the HCPC.
Places on this course are subject to police (DBS) and occupational health checks, including evidence of appropriate immunisations.
PLACEMENTS
As this course includes patient facing placements in health or social care settings, and these are a mandatory component of the course, you will need to comply with the placement vaccination policy. Failure to meet the placement vaccination policy may prevent you from joining the course or may lead to your withdrawal from the course in the future. Future employment may also be subject to this condition.
Fees and Funding
Tuition fees for the Academic Year 2023/24 are:
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UK Students: £18,500 (Full-time on a two-year basis. Course fee charged £9,250 per academic year)
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International Students: £39,600 (Full-time on a two-year basis. Course fee charged £19,800 per academic year. 2022-23 entrants are liable for £18,500 in 2023-24.)
We estimate living expenses at £1,023 per month.
Further Information on tuition fees can be found here.
Scholarships and Bursaries
The University of East Anglia offers a range of Scholarships; please click the link for eligibility, details of how to apply and closing dates.
Course Related Costs
Due to the diversity of occupational therapy practice and the broad geographic area, practice placements will be located in a variety of locations around East Anglia. You will be responsible for covering additional costs of transport and accommodation. You will also need to pay for a DBS check and health screening, plus any necessary vaccinations.
You can find information regarding additional costs associated on our Fees and finance webpages.
Please see Additional Course Fees for details of course-related costs.
How to Apply
Applications for Postgraduate Taught programmes at the University of East Anglia should be made directly to the University.
Applications from International students for February 2024 are closed.
Applications for Home students will close on 1st October 2023.
To apply please use our online application form.
FURTHER INFORMATION
If you would like to discuss your individual circumstances prior to applying please do contact us:
Postgraduate Admissions Office
Tel: +44 (0)1603 591515
Email: admissions@uea.ac.uk
International candidates are also encouraged to access the International Students section of our website.
Employability
After the Course
Upon successful completion of your programme, you will be eligible to apply to register with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Once registered, you will be able practice as an occupational therapist.
A typical first job will consolidate your skills and may offer opportunities to progress into a specialist role or to take on management responsibilities. Alternatively, you may decide to progress your career into clinical research or private practice.
Careers
A degree at UEA will prepare you for a wide variety of careers. We've been ranked 1st for Job Prospects by StudentCrowd in 2022.
Examples of careers you could enter include:
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National Health Service
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Charitable organisations
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Social services departments
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Private health services
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Own start-ups
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Clinical research