International Foundation Programme - Business and Law

This module provides you with the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the skills needed to study in a UK university. You will learn about UK Higher Education culture, and acquaint yourself with the many university support mechanisms to develop your skills and thrive at university.

This will be learnt through a number of ways including onsite communicative and task-based learning. This will engage you in the active use of the English language and encourage you to study at university more proactively and independently.

In addition, you will also be introduced to your subject specialisms and the International Foundation Programme as a whole.

This module is designed to help you to meet the English level needed for both the International Foundation Programme and your undergraduate degree, and to give you the tools you need to become an independent language learner. It will teach you how to learn language for academic study, take responsibility for your own language learning, and gain the habits of continuous learning which you will need on your undergraduate program.

You will learn to develop your:

• Communicative abilities in English
• Functional language ability across the main skills of English (speaking, listening, reading, and writing)
• Grammatical knowledge and accuracy in English
• Vocabulary and fluency in English

You will develop your skills in this area and improve your ability to apply them in the subject of your undergraduate degree.

The aim of this module is to equip you with some of the skills that are necessary for preparing you for studying at university and starting your journey into employment. The module comprises several skill areas. The aim of the module is to create a friendly, interactive, and inclusive learning environment.

Personal skills will support the identification of your skills and abilities through targeted activities whilst looking at ways to maximise your presence within both a university context and the wider workplace. Project management skills include working with others, delegation, participation, and reflecting on approaches taken.

This module aims to provide an introduction to Business organisations and their internal functions and external environments that they operate in. You will develop an understanding of how key departments of a business work together and how they affect business decision-making.

You will be required to reflect on current business practices and use critical thinking skills to decide which ones are most appropriate in different situations. As such this module will develop an understanding of how organisations can be seen as an open system that is in contextual interaction with its dynamic environment.

This module explores the concepts of entrepreneurship and innovation, and how they influence individual and organisational performance within the modern global economy.

You will explore the opportunities and disruptive nature of innovation, whether it be adapting an existing process to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness to a complete transformation of a business model to develop and launch a new product that aims to sustain a competitive advantage.

Please note: this module will not be studied by students progressing onto BSc Accounting

In this module, you will develop an awareness of how ethical action is increasingly important in today’s interconnected world. Decisions we take in one sector of a society can rapidly influence another sector, crossing borders and having far-reaching effects on real lives. Whether it is in the ethical choices you make in business, environmental policy, law and order, medicine, politics, the media or academic research, this is a key topic you need to understand for the twenty-first century.

Drawing on core philosophical principles, the Ethical Practices in Action module guides you in examining how choices we make and actions we take shape today’s world. Through understanding where ethics come from, why they are important, and how they can help us make better choices, you will be better prepared to work in many areas of contemporary society, for instance in business, HR, healthcare, counselling, criminal justice, academia and politics.

Managing projects that produce a final outcome/artefact are an everyday part of working and academic life. Learning the skills of how to organise your time, find resources and use your personal strengths is essential for your future career. This module is designed to support you to carry out a project in your subject-specific area and will equip you with the skills and knowledge you need to complete your project successfully.

You will gain an understanding of the essential steps in the project life cycle and have the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on your (and your fellow students’) progress throughout the project work, to the project completion stage.

This module will also introduce you to academic research skills and develop your ability to critically appraise and organise material. This module takes a holistic and reflective approach to your learning, with you developing a portfolio of your improved project planning, research and evaluation skills, and production of an artefact.

The Academic Practice module has a series of practical sessions that link with your other pathway modules to prepare you for your undergraduate degree. These sessions feature the broad range of essential study skills such as research and working with sources, use of digital tools, writing and presentation skills, and reflection and action planning.

Developing and improving study skills is a gradual process. It is also an individual process. If you are new to higher education or have not studied for some time, you may feel worried about tackling your first assignment; taking an exam; or juggling study with other commitments.

Here, this module is designed to help you to acquire the academic literacy and language skills you need to succeed at university.

Please note: this module will be studied only by students progressing onto BSc Accounting, instead of the Ethical Practice in Action module.

The disciplines of mathematics and statistics offer a wide range of powerful tools, which are indispensable to the study of economics, accounting, and finance. While studying on this module you will be introduced to the parts of mathematics and statistics which are most prominently featured in key models and formulae.

You will learn the meaning behind mathematical derivations of some of these formulae, revealing their origin and meaning. Equally, we will cover basic descriptive statistics which is the first step in the analysis of ever-increasing data sets.

Through this, you will advance your awareness and understanding of the mathematical and statistical underpinnings behind the financial and economic theories that you will study on the corresponding programs.