A good command of English is the basis of your course. You have two English lessons each morning in a class with a maximum of 12 students. Your English teacher is also your personal tutor and meets you individually to check on your progress. The course begins with intensive English, which both improves your IELTS score and builds the academic skills in English you need to be successful at university.

English for IELTS

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is recognised worldwide by more than 10,000 institutions in more than 120 countries, including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is the single most important English language requirement for non-native speakers who wish to study at university in the UK or other countries where English is the medium of instruction.

• In September and October, you focus on boosting your score in Academic IELTS before starting your academic subjects.
• Our English Language teachers have many years’ experience in preparing students for IELTS and success rates in the exam are extremely high.

English for Academic Purposes

Your English lessons explore contemporary, culturally interesting themes such as Child Labour or Endangered World Languages and help you improve your English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and study skills. Through engaging topics, you practise and develop the key Academic literacies required at university including:

• note-taking, researching, evaluating and selecting source material
• critical thinking
• discursive and dialogic learning, independent learning
• analysing essay questions, paragraphing, developing arguments, referencing, avoiding plagiarism
• developing reading strategies, building academic vocabulary
• presentation skills and strategies

The assessments during the course include:

• formal and informal writing activities
• an extended essay based on your own research
• academic oral presentations

Personal Tutor

Your English Language teacher is also your personal tutor. They advise and help you during your studies – to help you set goals and check your progress. As well as regular, more formal academic tutorial meetings, you can also talk to your personal tutor at any point about difficulties or problems in your studies or in your life outside of class.

Students choose either our Business foundation (Business, Economics and Maths for Business) or our Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) foundation. These subjects are taught by highly qualified and experienced staff.  The work you do in these classes will demonstrate to universities that you can make the step up to academic study in English at university.

• Classes are small – never more than 12 students – to make sure you receive the personal help you need to progress and succeed.
• Each subject is divided into modules and clearly structured to help you if you are new to these subjects.
• The final grade is based on 60% assessed coursework and 40% final exam.
• Your assessed work is designed to ensure you have the study skills as well as the subject knowledge you need to be ready for university from formal essay writing and PowerPoint presentations to business case-studies.
• The two six-week modules you take, Global Affairs and Statistics, supplement these skills as you learn to create and present a ‘poster’ on a global topic and learn to understand how statistics are used and interpreted.
• Your academic subject teachers work closely with both your personal tutor and our higher education staff to ensure we can present strong, detailed university applications which highlight your academic strengths.
  

  “I really enjoyed studying Politics. I had never had the chance to study that subject, so it was completely new and exciting. I wasn’t prepared to go to university last year, but spending a year in Oxford was the perfect way to build my confidence, develop my academic skills, and prepare myself for the university experience.”

What topics would my academic subjects cover?

Please expand the accordions below to check the full range of topics.

Meet your academic subject teachers

Find out more about our academic teaching staff.

• Introduction to the functions of business
• Entrepreneurship
• Business structures, plans and stakeholders
• Finance
• Accounting
• Human Resources
• Understanding markets and market research
• Marketing, branding and consumer behaviour
• The Marketing Mix
• Business strategy
• International marketing
• Operations management, production and technology

• Algebra: lines and equations
• Functions: quadratic, exponential, logarithmic, and rational
• Transformations and graphs
• Arithmetic and geometric sequences and series.
• Statistics: descriptive statistics; uni-variate: tables, plots, summary by numbers; Bi-variate: scatter plots and regression lines
• Probability: modern probability theory; combined and conditional events
• Calculus: differentiation; basic rules, tangent and normal lines, turning points, motion in a straight line, optimisation
• Integration: basic rules, definite integral and areas, linear motion, rate of change problems
• Trigonometry: circular measures, trigonometric ratios and functions, calculus of trigonometric functions.

Micro-economics

• Demand and supply for goods
• Markets at work
• Production, specialisation and exchange
• Market failure
• Private goods, public goods and externalities
• Government intervention in the economy and the problem of government failure

Macro-economics

• Objectives and instruments of macroeconomic policy
• Economic growth and the economic cycle
• Aggregate demand and the circular flow of income
• Aggregate demand and aggregate supply macroeconomic model
• Employment and unemployment
• Price stability and inflation
• Balance of payments
• Monetary policy, fiscal policy; supply-side economics and supply-side policies

• Origins of politics: Plato and Aristotle
• Political participation and key concepts: state, nation, people, populism
• Political ideologies
• Totalitarianism and the radicalization of ideologies
• Liberal democracy: political systems and branches of government
• Constitutions
• Political parties, elections, pressure   groups and social movements
• Role of the media in contemporary politics
• The modern state: domestic and international politics
• International political economy, the UN, EU and globalization
• Theories of international relations
• Contemporary global issues

• Empiricism and rationalism
• Knowledge of the external world
• Scepticism
• Mind-body problem
• Free will and determinism
• Problem of evil
• Concept of God
• Moral philosophy
• Crime and punishment
• Freedom, rights, the law and morality
• Abortion and euthanasia

Philosophers studied include: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Rousseau, Burke, Mill and Marx.

• What is psychology and how do we study it?
• Psychological theories and approaches
• The human brain
• Sleep and dreams
• Learning and behaviour
• Memory
• Language
• Development (cognitive, attachment and theory of mind)
• Morality
• Social cognition and influence
• Health
• Psychopathology

Inspection Reports

These rigorous inspection reports confirm that we offer the highest levels of academic provision and pastoral care:

• The British Council Inspection focuses on teaching and course design for English Language classes. Read the Report here

• The Independent Schools Inspectorate (Private Further Education) focuses on the quality of the curriculum, teaching and learners’ achievements and student welfare. Read the Report here

External Examiner Reports

Each year our University Foundation Programme is assessed and moderated by an External Examiner based at UK university.  This offers assurance to both students and the universities our students subsequently attend that the programme is of the highest standard:

• “I have been impressed with the programme and the quality of provision. The students are exposed to high quality teaching within a cosmopolitan environment which is caring and supportive. The standards within the Programme are rigorous and systems are in place to maintain a high standard.  I am particularly impressed by the attention given to each student and the support and care they receive.” Dr Steve Gascoigne, University of Warwick, July 2017

• “I am pleased to commend the UFP as a quality programme that prepares small cohorts of international students very well for University study in the UK as well as for a variety of overseas universities.” Dr Liz Wilding, University of Reading, September 2016