Sport, Health and Exercise Science Q&A - University of Portsmouth

hello there and welcome to

this question and answer session with

myself professor richard feldwell

from university of portsmouth we're just

going to give it a couple of minutes to

allow people to join this particular

session and then i will run through

some of the key things associated with

the school in terms of the courses

and other information that you may wish

to know about and then we'll open it up

for questions

so you'll see on the right hand side for

those of you who are literally joining

as i speak

um the comments box so if you do have

any specific questions then please

do put them in there and i'll get to

those as we work through this particular

session

and as i said we'll just give it a

minute or so

before we kick off with this particular

session

so just give another 30 seconds or so

just to let anyone else join

uh normally these types of events have a

number of people joining after the start

so

it's not uncommon for us just to have a

slight pause at the start

oh

okay so uh let's make a start to the

session so

a very good afternoon to everybody my

name is professor richard thalwell and

i'm the head of school of sport health

and exercise science at the university

of portsmouth

the purpose of this session is for me to

be able to provide a brief overview of

the kind of things that you can expect

within the school

and also for you guys to have an

opportunity to ask any questions that

you might have

with regards to your studies so i'm

making an assumption that the vast

majority of you are looking at starting

your studies

next september october time and

obviously between now

and that particular point there are some

significant events that you have to

consider

obviously the ucas deadline is looming

at the moment it's

remaining on the 15th of january and

there are loads of different things that

you're going to have to consider

in terms of where you might wish your

degrees

to take place so it could be financial

it could be logistical it could be

geographical it could be financial

there could be career issues that you

wish to consider in terms of

where you wish to study and of course

the courses as well

so just to give you a bit of an overview

we have

three main undergraduate courses within

the school

the first is the sport and exercise

science course

and normally we'd have around about 150

students on that

per year who start at level four or year

one

now within that sport and exercise

science course there will be

a significant amount of psychology

physiology biomechanics human movement

strength conditioning

nutrition rehabilitation and injury and

each year you'll have the opportunity

to develop your expertise in some of

those areas to the point where in the

final year

it's pretty much all option for you so

you can really focus in on

areas that you have a specific interest

in

the second course is the sports business

management course

and we are in the process of just

redeveloping some of the constituent

parts of that

now the sports business management

course obviously as the name was

suggested is very different to that of

the sport and exercise science course

so elements of sports business sports

marketing sports organisation

some of the political aspects associated

with sport and sporting governance

they're the kind of things that we then

end up looking at within that particular

course

in addition to aspects of coaching

development

normally there'd be around 50 to 60

students on that course per year

and the third undergraduate course is

the sport and exercise

psychology course which is bps

accredited

and is also part delivered with the

department of

psychology who are also within the

faculty that the school of sport health

and exercise science are in now

the first year of the psychology course

is exactly the same as the sport and

exercise

science course and the reason for that

being that

if you want to become a psychologist you

have to have an understanding of the

other sport and exercise science

disciplines

in the second year the vast majority of

that particular course is delivered by

the department of psychology and that's

where you get what's called

graduate basis for chartered membership

so if you might have seen

gbc over bps documentation

so things such as cognitive psychology

social psychology

psychobiological development psychology

for example will be covered within that

particular

year in the third year you're then back

into the sport

exercise health clinical type aspects of

psychology

now within our school we currently have

eight members of staff who are

psychology focused

a number of which are working with a

range of professional bodies

organizations etc

so you'll get the sport and exercise

psychology focus from our school and

you'll get the mainstream psychology

from the department of psychology

so they're the three undergraduate

courses and sorry i should say there

that we normally have around 40 to 45

students limited places on that

psychology course

so they're the undergraduate courses and

it's also worth just considering the

size

of the school so we currently have

35 academic members of staff we are all

based within the spinnaker building

so we have a home which is pretty rare

for a school

and i suppose even

more the case given the fact that we are

a city-based campus

those 35 members of staff cover all of

the disciplines and we expect our staff

to be engaging in research

promoting placement opportunities

ensuring that our curriculum is

vocationally relevant

to enable you to really develop

yourselves for the professional

workplace

further to that we have literally

although we haven't quite got in there

yet because of what's happening with

covid

we've got a new facility which is just

for sport

strength conditioning and rehabilitation

so that particular facility

is virtually untouched but it's got in

excess of a hundred thousand pounds

worth of brand new equipment from

a nice kinetic dynamometer all the way

through

bench platforms it's a fantastic

facility which is going to be just

for our students and that will be as i

said for the strength conditioning

rehabilitation type aspects within our

curriculum

so we're continually looking to improve

what we have to ensure that students

have access to the best facilities

possible

and you only have to look on the website

to get a feel for the kind of facilities

that we have

from whether it's environmental chambers

where you're doing physiology or

psychophysiology

human movement studies where we can

effectively recreate wherever you want

in the world

so we can put you up a mountain we can

put you in 50 degree heat

we can put you in dry conditions humid

conditions freezing cold conditions

to look at the way in which the body and

our performance might respond so of

course that has a range of health

elite sports recreational applications

and

you guys will get your hands dirty and

get involved within those particular

facilities

just before i move on to the questions

it's obviously

absolutely critical for us to have a

very keen eye

on how our courses prepare students for

employment

so all of our courses have a sandwich

year option

so you can either go and study abroad

you can maybe take a year out

on a a placement activity

there are aspects within our curriculum

which are associated to professional

development

and on some of the courses the sports

business management course in particular

in the second year or level five you can

do

half of your year abroad so we have a

whole variety

of international um

exchange opportunities through our

partnerships

to enable our students to have a

wonderful range

of opportunities to effectively get out

there but further to that we

partner with many many professional

bodies

and they all have input to the

curriculum to ensure that what you're

studying

enables you to be as best prepared for

when you go into the real world

so that gives you a very whistle-stop

tour through

the school i'm sure that there are many

other things that

you would like to know about but i'm

just going to look at some of the key

questions that are coming up at the

moment and the first one there i suppose

is

hot on everybody's lips in terms of

what's happening right now in terms of

where are we with regards to covid

so we're operating at the moment what's

called a blended

and connected offering of our curriculum

so all of our lectures are now

pre-recorded into bite-sized chunks and

effectively that is really benefiting

the students and the feedback that we've

had from that has been

absolutely fantastic because rather than

having timetabled events for lectures

students can watch when they want how

much they want and as many times as they

want

so we just need to make sure and the

expectations that we've agreed with

students is that all material

is ready a week in advance so lectures

are all online in terms of smaller group

sessions such as

seminars practicals workshops

laboratories we have been able to do a

number of those particular activities

on campus now given that covid

has uh obviously very concerning

transmission rates we've had to be very

careful with regards to what laboratory

sessions we can do

so at the moment we haven't been able to

engage in laboratory-based activities in

physiology

biomechanics etc because of the

potential dangers

associated to that but there has been a

lot of face-to-face teaching and we're

probably averaging around six

hours a week face to face on campus at

the moment

and of course there are a number of

things that have influenced that because

some staff have had to isolate

we've had students who have had to

isolate and so because of the cases

we've had to be very flexible

in terms of how we have been able to

deliver our curriculum

that said the staff have been very very

imaginative and innovative in terms of

how they're trying to enable students to

be at home but link into a live session

whilst there are also

students within that session face to

face

so it's a bit of everything that we're

trying to manage at the moment but the

key

part of that question i suppose is will

we be in by september well

again we are crystal ball gazing to a

certain extent but given the fact that

we are

just at the outset of the vaccine and we

are now looking nine months nine and a

half months hence

i would really hope that comes september

2021 things will return to a degree of

normality

that said we may see some changes that

have come about because of what's

happened so far

i mentioned about the lectures and the

students have really enjoyed

and really benefited from having those

pre-recorded

so that may well be something that we

have ongoing

but that also provides further

opportunities for us to have

an increased number of face-to-face

sessions whether it's seminars

practicals

laboratories workshops etc so i think we

might actually see a number of things

for the better

and obviously for those students this

year who are missing out on some of the

laboratory experiences

we're hoping that we'll be able to get

caught up with some of those maybe in

the easter period if we're allowed

or maybe their curriculum for next year

will be

more inclusive of some of those

activities but i really hope

that the practical aspect of the courses

the laboratories the practicals etc will

be back to what we know

as of next academic year but

i suppose we're at the um we're at the

mercy of how well the vaccine will

operate there

the next question is in regards to the

number of applicants that we normally

get for the sport and exercise science

course

um typically we probably have well we

normally have around about

900 to 1000 applications per year

and that's for the 150 175

places so it is competitive but

one of the things obviously that's

important to bear in mind will be

the um the requirements for actually

getting onto the course and again maybe

i'm preempting

some some questions later on here but

for the

sport and exercise science and also the

sport and exercise

psychology courses we're operating a

range of between 128

to 136 points so

again i can go into some of the

specifics with regards to what

the requirements are within those points

but

it's a competitive process but

if students are wanting to come to

portsmouth we would much

rather have students who want to come to

portsmouth who might just narrowly

kind of miss out or get the lower end of

the range

so it is competitive we do have a number

of applications

but year on year we do not struggle

in terms of our recruitment for those of

you who might be interested in sports

management and development or

what it's going to be known as the

sports business management course

that's got a range of 112 to 128

points slightly different now that

doesn't mean that it's an inferior

course

it's just not as scientific in terms

of what the requirements are within the

course

the next question excuse me related

relates to how the courses are assessed

um

one of the things that we pride

ourselves on i suppose within the school

is the real variety of assessment

strategies

and the things that influence our

assessment strategies will not just be

the subject area

it will be the input from employers

there will be influence from students

student feedback

we have external examiners like every

single university has

who will comment on what our assessment

suite actually looks like and one of the

things we are continually credited with

are the the assessment strategies that

we have in place

now in terms of the specifics they will

range all the way from

examinations and the examinations might

be

multiple choice there might be short

answers with multiple choice there might

be

essay-based um exams there might be what

we call

scene exams so there are a whole variety

of examinations

then we have varieties of coursework so

it might be laboratory

coursework it might be the writing of

abstracts nowadays it might well be that

you have to provide

infographics or video based infographics

for certain

employment environments there will be

presentations some of those might be

individual presentations some of them

might be group

presentations and these again will be

very much

influenced by the the discipline

and also the course so i'm afraid that

wherever you go across the uk you're

probably not going to be able to have

just one

form of assessment because what

employers are continually looking for

as we fully know now through the work

that we do with them through our various

committees

is that they want students who can

defend their work

students who can write work very well

but also write work in a scientific and

also a non-scientific format so again

there's a different type of assessment

strategy there

but when you go out into the real world

you have an understanding of how to use

information and present it be it orally

or in the written form so

again assessments have significantly

developed

in recent years and i suppose one other

thing that's just worth bearing in mind

is that um when you get to the

third year or level six the types of

assessments

are more real world focused or applied

in their focus for example if you're

doing something in physiology you might

be working with a particular client you

then have to

administer some form of test and write a

client report for them

or in psychology you might be given an

assessment

challenge and it could be that you have

to then respond to the data that is

being generated and how you go about

intervening with a particular client

so it's very much at level four about

understanding the basics getting the

knowledge the basic competence

and then integrating more of the

research at level five into level six

where it certainly becomes

more applied in nature

uh in terms of the next question so this

is about

elite sports and whether or not lectures

get in the way of training well

i suppose the first thing to say is that

we would always want to promote

engagement within sport physical

activity health exercise related

tasks that our students want to engage

in we've had

numerous elite level sports people over

the years

and all we've asked them to do is to

ensure that they

inform us to when they are likely to be

away

so for some individuals for example in

sailing they might have

overseas training regattas or they might

have major competitions

throughout term time well as long as we

know that in advance we can provide the

appropriate support for you

given what we're learning through covid

then one

almost also might hope that the support

via online lectures

will also enable that that greater

flexibility

uh to be utilized as well the university

has

a sport scholarship scheme which is also

run through sports and recreation so

it's not run by ourselves and

part of that particular process

enables you to

to get scientific support there might be

physiotherapy support or rehabilitation

supports

but there's an extensive support package

for individuals

who receive the scholarship and again

that's through the sports and recreation

department

who incidentally you might have seen if

you've looked around the website will be

moving into a new

sports facility in the next few months

so

currently we have two

internal halls and we have gym

facilities

across a split site at the moment but

there's a new 50 million plus facility

which is being built literally 200

meters from where the our spinnaker

building is

and it will have an eight-lane pool a

175

station gym an eight court hall and so

it's going to be

fantastic and you guys will probably be

the first

academic cohort that will really benefit

from

utilizing that that new facility

a good question there about can you go

on a study abroad um

kind of exchange program and the answer

that is yes

so all of our courses at undergraduate

level have

a sandwich year option so

at the start of level five which is the

second year

you'll receive lots of information to

ask you to consider whether you'd like

to go

on a sandwich year now that sandwich

here can be split into either

an overseas study abroad or it might be

some kind of professional placement that

you wish to engage in for

a one year period and then after you've

done that you then

come back in to finish off your degree

studies

there are significant developments on

that front at the moment

so not only have we had uh

obviously this year is a little bit

different but

in the in the next uh in the coming

years

we've got a multitude of exchange

options

with universities in north america so

canada

us we have exchange options

in australia and new zealand which are

coming online

and students as i said do have the

opportunity to go and study abroad for a

year

one of the most exciting things which is

coming online hopefully for next year

is what we call a dual award and this is

where

students will have uh a third year based

at edith cowan university

in western australia and as i said this

is

hopefully coming online for next year

but it might be the year after

but you effectively get a dual degree

from portsmouth

and also edith cowan university so you

do your first two years here

you then go to edith cowan university

for the third year

and then you come back to portsmouth for

the fourth year so there are a variety

of sandwich or study abroad placements

opportunities available and some

individuals have really really benefited

from that and the feedback that we've

had

the feedback that we've had from those

students

has been excellent and they've really

enjoyed the

experience of going overseas

so i hope i hope that that's helped in

terms of that particular question

um right good question that one

about the um the sports science course

uh yeah so the university is ranking

really well

but we're not currently ranked in the qs

survey

well we are ranked in the qx survey but

we're just not currently

in the top 100 so in our subject area

we're currently ranked in the 150 to 200

brackets and a lot of that is to do with

internationalization so

as we currently as we speak right now

we are engaged in a very clear strategic

move

to ensure that we have visiting staff

from overseas

that we have partnerships as i've just

been alluding to

with regards to where our students can

go with regards to how our

our research is perceived

internationally so

a lot of the international league tables

such as the qs league tables

are research focused they're not so much

kind of teaching course focused

but as i said our strategy at the moment

is to ensure that in the next

five years so by 2025 we are continually

seen as being one of the top 10

sport health exercises exercise

providers in the uk

but also seen as a top 100

provider within those particular league

tables

so it's something that we are very aware

of because

we perceive the international market as

being

a really beneficial place for us to

extend our provision

and we have a number of international

students

who use those types of league tables

has important indicators to whether or

not they should come

and study with us so i hope that that's

kind of answered your question a little

bit there

but as i said a lot of those

international tables are more about

research capability and in the last

um in the last few years we've seen our

staffing of

when i started as head of school in 2009

we had in the region of 18 members of

staff we're now up to 35

so we are growing in terms of our

capability

in terms of our research outputs

in terms of our research quality income

generation from research but also

the kind of internationalization within

our curriculum

so i hope that that helps to respond uh

to that particular

that particular question now the next

one there is uh about books

uh that you can read for the sports

psychology course

um the best thing to do there is to

contact the course lead

uh dr daniel brown and

dan will be able to direct you to some

of the key

texts that we would utilize

if i can just take that a little bit

further given the fact that

i'm a psychologist by trade as well so i

can maybe cheat a little bit on that one

the key text that we would look for

would be

things such as the book by cox um

there's a book by weinberg and gould

there are other texts by hardy jones and

gold you know lots of books that we

might

refer you to but they're all quite

costly

so the best thing i would say is if dan

can give you

one or two key references that might

help

in terms of background information but

when you

hopefully come next year all of those

materials will be available for you

either in hard copy in the library

or online and our online provision

i suppose is just as well we had an

excellent online

provision because of what's now happened

with covid

but you'll be off the books pretty

quickly in and then into the journals

and our online journal availability is

exceptional

and the vast majority of your

references and the things that you'll be

referring to will be research papers

so please don't be too concerned about

text books

that are very generic we have more than

enough of those but dan

will be able to direct you more

specifically

but as soon as you arrive hopefully then

you'll be able to access that material

via online provision as well

further to that i should say that we we

operate something called moodle which

i'm sure

many of you are familiar with and that's

our online learning platform

where all information for out we call

the modules

uh everything is based there so the

lectures are uploaded the reading lists

are uploaded so

a lot of the time students just

literally click onto the reading list

they click the reading and it takes them

straight into the university library

where

there it is at the click of a click of a

button

uh so yeah i hope that that's helped

that particular question

um okay the next one size

batch size in the sports science course

so we normally would have about 150 to

175

new students on the sport and exercise

science course per year

and every single student who comes into

our school irrespective of the course

will be assigned to a personal tutor

straight away

so our personal tutors are the academic

members of staff

and you'll meet with a personal tutor on

a weekly basis

especially at level four or first year

we also have surgery hours which have

worked

brilliantly this year uh where all staff

are available without fail for an

additional two hours per week for

students just to go in and book online

for a meeting

now of course that doesn't mean that you

can't meet with the staff

at other times but you know that the

staff will be guaranteed to be available

at those particular times

so each tutor will have a tutor group of

around

10 to 12 students

and the idea is that you then stay with

that tutor throughout the duration of

your studies

and i'll come back to one of the reasons

why that's important in a second with

regards to the second part of the

question

so the other thing to bear in mind is if

you have um

well i'll say if we have large lectures

there could be times where we have 175

maybe 250 people in those lectures if it

if that particular lecture covers all of

our courses

but who knows what lectures are going to

look like going forward they might be

somewhat different

so the laboratories the seminars the

practicals the workshops

depending upon the subject depending

upon the demands of that session

there might well be between 10 to 25

students in that particular session at

any one moment in time so be lots of

repeats

but you'll have lots of opportunities to

ensure that you

get your hands on the kit get the

experiences and have really good

experiential learning

so as i said there's kind of like 150 to

175

total but depending upon the types of

sessions that might be run

the most you'll have in a in a smaller

group class will be 25.

the second part of your question is

about the scope for postgraduate courses

after completing undergraduate course

and we're very proud of the fact that we

have a suite of

msc courses that will enable students

to have a route from all of our

undergraduate

courses so currently we have a course in

sports performance which is more of a

generic

type of masters course covering

psychology physiology biomechanics

we have a course called clinical

exercise science which is

as the name would suggest very clinical

based but also

speaks to a lot of the health related

issues that we have

within our subject area so there's a lot

of link with nhs with hospital trusts

etc

through that particular course we have a

an accredited course in sport and

exercise

psychology so again if you want to be a

psychologist you have to do an msc

in sport and exercise psychology to then

get onto the professional training

routes

so we have a number of students who will

go from our undergraduates

a psychology course onto the

postgraduate psychology course or

a number of them do the sport and

exercise science course and then

progress on to the

sport and exercise psychology course and

so

normally we'd have around about 25

students per year on that masters course

which is

which is very healthy the fourth course

we have is sports management

and again that is uh something that

uh has grown in recent years and

uh that i suppose is a significant

advancement

on what our students at undergraduate

level do

we then have a fifth course called human

and applied physiology

which again speaks to our strengths in

environmental physiology

and also clinical physiology and the one

that started this year

is strength conditioning and

rehabilitation

so that again has been incredibly

popular and

all of our courses are mapped wherever

possible to

professional uh qualifications

and professional training requirements

the sixth one

which we are literally working through

at the moment

is a pre-registration course in

physiotherapy

and a lot of our students on completion

of their undergraduates

go off and want to cover physiotherapy

elsewhere

so because one of our thematic areas of

strength is

physical activity exercise and

rehabilitation

we are now looking at putting together a

physiotherapy course which we are hoping

will start

in september 2021 but more realistically

january 2022 so that will give

students an opportunity to again stay

with us the key thing i will say

is if you do want to go into courses

such as strength conditioning or

physiotherapy

maybe even teacher training after your

undergraduates and i know we're talking

three

four years down the line here the best

advice i can give you is to get as

much relevant experience throughout your

degree studies

so hopefully that answers

the question there about what post-grad

opportunities

there are and i'm very i'm very proud of

the fact that we have an excess of 100

masters students across our courses so

we have a really really strong community

of masters students within our school

i'm just going to jump a question here

because it said

the question is what can portsmouth

offer that's different to other

universities

and what can you learn at portsmouth as

opposed to another university

so first i think that there is

there's the option there of throughput

to masters courses

irrespective of the undergraduate course

second

there is a continual link with local

employers

regional employers national employees

global employers

in terms of opportunities that you have

third to that

is the variety of

courses that we offer at undergrad which

means that to be able to do

that we have to have a real breadth

of experience and expertise within our

staff

but the key thing that i think will

separate

or the key two things one is our core

values that we have as a school

to ensure that everything that we do is

driven by

core values of a collegiate environment

feeling

engaged by promoting equality and having

a sense of belonging

so our school is effectively a very

familial

type of approach we want everyone to

actually feel

part of the group and the way that staff

liaise

and work with our students i think is

absolutely critical for the ongoing

successes

the other thing that i think is really

important is

we are very clear about what our

strengths are

so we have three key thematic strengths

so

everything that we do fits into one of

the three the first is about

extreme environments so everything that

we do

in life revolves around an environment

now some of those are very extreme some

of them might not seem very extreme but

they challenge us physiologically

psychologically from a movement

perspective from a policy perspective so

everything that we teach in research

will fit into that particular area the

second one revolves around what we call

individual occupational and

organizational performance

so we have sports performers

operating an individual level we work

with them we research them we study them

we work at organizational levels so we

now see

a huge amount of our curriculum looking

at things such as

culture organizational culture

organizational psychology

you've only got to look at a number of

sporting organizations at the moment

where there are clear

cultural issues in terms of how they go

about their business so

that's a really strong area for where we

work and we've got a huge piece of work

we're doing a uk sport at the moment

looking at those types of things as well

the third area is about physical

activity health and rehabilitation

so as i said that's where the strength

conditioning and rehabilitation course

comes in

that's where the new areas of our

curriculum come in the physiotherapy as

well

so what i can say is that everything

that we do

aligns to our strengths and when we're

appointing new staff we're looking at

staff with those particular strengths

there are other areas that we are not as

strong in but we don't pretend

to be strong in those particular areas

so

when you look around universities it's

very important that you think well what

do i want where do i want to go

what do i want expertise to be in

and you know i can sit here quite

happily and say

well we have an incredible research

output from our staff we have really

impressive links with

ministry of defense with professional

bodies professional

organizations the nhs trusts etc

because of the expertise that we have we

write

expert statements which then influence

policy

for various sporting organizations

and they're the kind of things that are

really important for you to bear in mind

so i hope that that kind of helps a

little bit but there's the other stuff

that you mustn't forget what else

are we doing for promoting your career

so

for example we have a career development

prize which

is available to every single student in

our school

the top prize is 500 pounds and all you

have to do is write 500 words

to say why we should give you 500 pounds

to go towards your career development

so it's an open competition it's

developing those skills

and ultimately you might be a recipient

of up to 500 pounds to help you

we then look at equality and diversity

engagement in the local community type

awards so we're promoting those types of

skills

on a very regular basis we engage with

our alumni

so our ex students who come back and be

mentors

and provide a whole variety of workshops

we do a careers conference each year

which our mentors are effectively the

key drivers for

so you're involved in a global network

of people

right from the outset and one of the

things that you'll be receiving very

soon as a

as a uh as someone who has logged into

one of our

uh recruitment events you'll be

receiving something called

pulse which is our newsletter that we

publish twice a year

it's only four pages long but it gives

you an insight to the weird wonderful

crazy things that are going on across

the staff the students

and also our rx students so

that goes out to all of our alumni it

goes out to all of our external partners

it goes out to all of our current

students so the network is really big

and we're connecting you with those

people straight away and of course

in addition to that you've then got your

overseas studies etc

that you may wish to engage in as well

next question there was about the third

year project

yes so wherever you go across the uk

it's highly likely that you'll end up

doing a level

six final year project and one of the

key things that we try to ensure

is that your work is cutting edge

and as i've already mentioned the

projects that you'll be doing will be

within one of our thematic areas they

will be aligned

to our staff expertise

and ideally you'll be doing a piece of

work that could well be publishable

so we've had many examples in the past

of

students who with a bit of support after

they've finished their work

have been able to submit their their

projects

for publication and then of course the

students of the future

start to refer to those particular

projects but also

we want to ensure that students have an

opportunity to go off to conferences

and there's a major organization called

bases british association of sport and

exercise science

and we support financially and

academically

a large number of students to go to that

particular conference each year

and that again is a good opportunity for

you to present your dissertations

so that again there are some of the

added benefits

in terms of what we do within our school

but also to hopefully

motivate you to do an excellent piece of

work

uh for your dissertation and again many

students then carry that on

into their postgraduate studies as well

right i'm just going down the list

okay so there's a question there about

masters programs

and again if you go to our web pages on

the course

web pages you'll be able to see

uh very clear information with regards

to

what our programs are at masters level

and also what the entry requirements are

and who each of the course leads are

the applications for masters courses

they're effectively open all year round

but

there's increased competition now with

regards to the number of places

that are available so um

for for that particular individual who

set about wanting to to go onto a

masters program

as i said my best advice is to look onto

the course pages

and you can then be connected with the

relevance course

leader

any other questions any other things

that people would like to know i think

i've worked through the vast majority

there

i suppose it's also worth saying about

some of the other facilities

um that we have i've mentioned about the

new

um strength conditioning rehabilitation

suite that we have uh i've mentioned

about the environmental facility but we

also have a number of other teaching

laboratories

for physiology for motor skill

skill acquisition type studies so

whether it's eye tracking whether it's

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emg type activities

uh whether it's visual search um

all of those types of uh equipment are

available

and uh obviously you guys will be

heavily involved if you're looking at

the sport

business management course then there

are good opportunities there as well

to be engaged with local organizations

so

we're heavily involved with the

portsmouth schools partnership so

pretty early on within your studies

you'll be out and about looking at

event organizations um mega events

global events in terms of how they might

be run

and that's of course all the way right

down to maybe engaging in the local

community and coaching one further thing

there might be a number of you

who want to engage in

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coaching awards and the university runs

something called

up for sport and this is where you can

complete

pretty much as many as many

uh qualifications as you wish free of

charge the payment

is going and working in the local

community and doing some hours coaching

so a double winner on your cv there

in terms of having the qualification

and also having some voluntary

experience

uh the question there

the the admission decision admissions

decision

okay so uh all of the admissions that

you make

that go through ucas you cast then

contact the university

or the universities because obviously a

number of you will be putting multiple

institutions down

the university then gets in touch with

you pretty much straight away

our record is good and you should be

receiving an

offer from us within a 7 to 10 day

window

and the next stage of the

cycle for undergraduate students is

in the kind of spring time or later

spring time

you then have to whittle your choice of

five

institutions down to a first choice and

then an insurance

choice so that's where the real tough

decisions have to be made

because you've got to be very clear on

where you might like to go

what you want to study and that's where

you've got to make sure you've done as

much homework as you possibly can

prior to making that final decision so

hopefully that will

answer that particular question about

the admission decisions

and ultimately if you are predicted the

grades that you are

uh that enable you to to get onto our

courses you'll get a favorable response

any further questions in terms of what

else is on offer

or information on courses

we've covered some stuff on um

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[Applause]

assessment types we've looked at how the

courses

are normally delivered um other things

that students often like to know about

would be kind of contact hours per week

and again it's a bit different this year

because of

obviously covid but normally in the

first year

students would have 12 to 16 hours per

week contact

second year it might be around the 10 to

12 and same again within the third year

but again that's just the face-to-face

type contact

and that's pretty consistent across the

sector

but that's not to say that you can't do

more

and that doesn't include tutorial

sessions

and i say that's a very rough average on

a week by week

basis because depending upon the course

that you're wishing to study

sometimes you might have a few more

hours per week sometimes it might be a

little bit less

because some laboratory sessions for

example might be three hours sometimes

it might

be one hour so there's a bit of flex

there with regards to

what your week by week schedule might

look like and that very much is

influenced by the course and possibly

the

module that you're studying as well

any further questions trying to think

what else people might

might like to know about um

covered lots of information there is a

i'm also assuming that many of you might

not be aware of of portsmouth

in terms of um

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of a city where we are based we are

literally

in what's uh called i suppose the

northern

quarter and

uh we're right right down the line from

gun wharf keys which is a lovely area so

about a five minute walk from there

we're directly opposite the student

union we're 150 meters

from the main library you would have no

more than

three possibly four minutes to walk to

any of the buildings that you would need

to use

for your studies as well

a couple more questions have just come

in there so

placement year and sport site courses

yes there's uh

for all of our courses we have placement

years and that can either be

a work placement year or it can be a

study abroad year

so i mentioned a little bit earlier on

that

we've had many students in recent years

who have gone across to north america

for exchange years so that's their third

year then they come back

for their final year with us in

portsmouth

a number of students have really

benefited from

that we're currently in negotiation

uh with a number of other institutions

globally

and we've probably got around about 25

institutions who we either have existing

relationships with

or we're literally at the final stages

and

this is a moveable feast so we're

continually looking at having new

partners involved and the

the institutions that we are looking to

partner with we want to ensure

that they share the same values as we do

um so that when our students go there

hopefully as

as far as possible kind of a home from

home in terms of what their experience

is like

but students have really benefited from

that

that internationalization of the study

experience but also for those who have

done a placement year which can be

locally it can be regionally it can be

nationally it can be internationally

a number of those students have really

benefited too

the next question there is about a

foundation year

we run a generic foundation course in

science

within our faculty of science and health

so we don't do a foundation year

in sport and exercise science but we do

have a number of students who

come through from the generic course

into our school

so that option is there but as i said

it's a generic science course

so hopefully that's that's responded to

the vast majority of questions

but please do throw further questions

forward if you do have any

okay i'll give another 30 seconds or so

um or we'll we'll look to

we'll look to wrap up

but as i said beforehand

when you make your choice try to make

sure you've done as much homework as you

possibly can

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and that's including everything that you

were

wanting to try and achieve from from

your degree studies all the way from the

course

to the sporting opportunities of which

we have

goodness knows however many through the

athletic union

but also to the other things you know

what other opportunities are there going

to be

for you to benefit from throughout your

studies are you going to feel connected

are you going to feel safe are you going

to feel engaged

within that particular school are you

going to

enjoy your particular studies so

i'm glad it's been of benefit to a

number of people so

thank you for your comments thanks also

for your questions

um these sessions are somewhat difficult

if the questions aren't being posed so

it's nice to be able to

respond to a number of those particular

questions that have come up

but this isn't the only mechanism for

you to find information out

the webpage is full of information and

also

um you can always get in touch with

myself or my team

if you ever would like to have some

further information

so if there are no further questions um

i think we'll we'll look to call that a

day and

i wish you a very happy

and healthy festive period so

thank you for joining this afternoon and

i i hopefully will see you soon

as a student within our school okay

bye-bye