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The MSc Occupational Therapy (Pre-Registration) course offers a range of modules to enhance your learning and contributes to your understanding and development as a future qualified Occupational Therapist.
School of Allied Health and Midwifery
MSc Occupational Therapy (Pre-Registration)
MSc Full-time 2 years
This MSc Occupational Therapy (pre-registration) course prepares students to work with individuals facing complex personal health and social challenges, teaching them to appreciate the importance of occupation for health and well-being, and to develop tailored, innovative interventions that facilitate therapeutic change.
This MSc Occupational Therapy (pre-registration) course prepares students to work with individuals facing complex personal health and social challenges, teaching them to appreciate the importance of occupation for health and well-being, and to develop tailored, innovative interventions that facilitate therapeutic change.
Award
MSc
Start date(s)
15 September 2025
UCAS Code
Course specifications
Course length
Full-time (2 years)
Campus location
University of Wolverhampton Campus
School
School of Allied Health and Midwifery
UCAS points calculator
Why choose this course?
What happens on the course?
The MSc Occupational Therapy (Pre-Registration) course offers a range of modules to enhance your learning and contributes to your understanding and development as a future qualified Occupational Therapist. Some of the teaching and learning activities that you will experience during the course include:
- Inter-professional learning (IPL) opportunities that are embedded within both years of this course with some modules being shared with physiotherapy students. Inter-professional learning is when you will learn with, from and about other professions to improve the quality of care. IPL is vital in supporting you to develop the knowledge, skills and insights necessary for employment within increasingly integrated and complex health and social care settings.
- The service user is central to the curricula design, and service user and carer engagement with students on the programme is embedded within the module content and assessment of the modules. This will help you gain real life insight into service user experiences and also gain feedback from them as part of assessed components of this course.
- It is recognised that allied health professionals lead and manage their own caseloads, other professionals, students and the physical resources within the health and social care setting. Therefore, leadership, coaching and mentoring skills are encouraged and embedded within the programme, with final placement students having the opportunity to mentor students who are on their second placement.
- To further develop leadership and management skills, you will learn how to develop services, write business cases and manage projects, all of which are valuable skills to acquire when working in the NHS or in private practice.
- The focus throughout the programme is on the application of occupational therapy practice to real world contexts, ensuring you develop skills that will help you to succeed in the workplace.
- Research and contemporary evidence-based practice is central to all teaching and learning activity within the course to ensure all students have the most up to date knowledge upon its completion. This also ensures students have the required skills and knowledge to develop and improve services and their own and others’ practice through the utilisation of contemporary and evidence-based techniques.
The course also benefits from:
- A team committed to working to the Royal College of Occupational Therapists / World Federation of Occupational Therapists standards for their occupational therapy programmes.
- A focus on current public health priorities and the increasingly complex health needs of those using contemporary services.
- Visiting and honorary lecturers / speakers from a wide range of health care and related fields who bring contemporary and real-world examples of practice to your learning.
- Links and knowledge from local, national and international research initiatives undertaken in the Institute of Health and the wider University research institutes.
- Bespoke and specialist simulation suites to learn from such as a fully working mock house, complete with kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms.
During the programme you will have access to simulation facilities where you will be able to experience service user focused scenarios and develop your skills in a safe environment. This includes simulated in-hospital, home and community environments and our human-patient simulators will allow you to hone your skills, supported by experienced practitioners to guide you. A range of technology is embedded into our skills and simulation environments, including a virtual dissection table, which allows 3D images of human anatomy and diseases to come alive to support your learning.
Successful completion of all elements of the course will provide eligibility to apply for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as an Occupational Therapist.
You will also be eligible to join the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and World Federation of Occupational Therapists.
This course prepares you to work with people who, through illness, disability, trauma, or personal circumstances, have complex personal health and/or social challenges to overcome. You will learn to critically evaluate the importance of occupation to the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities and critically analyse how occupational performance is influenced by environmental factors. There will be opportunity to think creatively, solve problems, critically appraise complex situations effectively to develop tailored and innovative interventions in order to facilitate therapeutic change and transformation. It is important to develop a sense of critical self-reflection, enhanced personal and professional insight and the ability to empower and facilitate others to make informed choices, to take control and responsibility over their lives and aspirations. Aligned with the Royal College of Occupational Therapists four Pillars of Practice (RCOT, 2017), this programme will provide a combination of theory based and practical experience supported by academic and practice educators with relevant expertise who will support your development as a confident, compassionate, and skilled Occupational Therapist.
It is essential that when you enter the workplace as an occupational therapist you have developed a wide range of transferable skills, can work within and across different care settings and can recognise and pursue your own professional development needs. Therefore, our approach to learning and teaching within the MSc Occupational Therapy (Pre-registration) programme supports you to explore and assess your own strengths and weaknesses, encourages you to manage your own learning, develops you as a confident and compassionate practitioner and promotes critical reflection as a lifelong skill.
During the course, importance is placed on your ability to critically appraise and apply your developing knowledge to your broader practice experiences and to bring insights from practice into the taught sessions. Therefore, the core principles of occupation and occupation-centred practice are integrated into all aspects of teaching and learning within the programme and all learning and teaching methods are based on contemporary evidence within current research. Teaching and learning activities will incorporate established and developing theories and techniques of occupational therapy practice, utilising contemporary evidence-based and research in all teaching and learning activities. Specialist lecturers will be employed to contextualise the application of their own, and others, research to the course. The range of teaching and learning strategies used provide you with opportunities to develop your professional knowledge, skills and behaviours through lectures, theme days, seminar discussions, reflection, scenario-based learning, and practice-based learning thus preparing you for autonomous practice and understanding of your scope of practice.
For students joining this course in 2025, the first year of study will take place at Telford Campus. The remaining years of the course will be completed at our Walsall campus.
Your placement location will remain the same throughout your course. Please ensure you can easily commute to and from your placement location.
Course Modules
Potential Career Paths
Occupational therapists take a “whole-person approach” to both mental and physical health and wellbeing and enable individuals to achieve their full potential (RCOT, 2020). They work in a variety of settings including mental health, acute care and community services within public, independent, private and third sector settings. The practice placements will offer insight into a variety of these employment areas and will enable to you develop the necessary competencies to practice safely and confidently as a registered occupational therapist in your chosen employment area.
The programme will assist you to develop a strong professional identity and to be confident in demonstrating key employability skills such as being self-directed in your learning, having the ability to problem solve and to think critically. You will develop effective communication, leadership, and decision-making skills to ensure you are an effective and safe practitioner with a good awareness of the wider influences on your practice. You will also gain core skills in research, audit, and service improvement to ensure you are responsive to change and utilise evidenced based practice. These are all qualities that are essential for providing expert, evidence-based care and will make you highly employable. Immediate career prospects are excellent for newly qualified occupational therapists.
The programme, through its use of innovative, creative and reflective learning, will equip you with the knowledge, skills and values necessary to practise within a range of health and social care environments, public organisations (such as schools and prisons) and private organisations (such as charities, social enterprises and businesses). Within the programme you will have the opportunity to explore emerging employment opportunities for occupational therapists as well as becoming confident in developing existing services to meet the needs of individuals and communities. You will also be able to work in certain countries overseas, as occupational therapy education in the UK is well respected around the world.
During the final year of your study you will be helped to prepare for employment opportunities through the writing of application forms and developing your interview techniques, as well as exploring the use of social media to find employment and promote yourself as a professional.
Additional Information
Everything you need to know about this course!
For the award of Master’s degree, you, the student, will be able to:
- Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the key aspects of occupational therapy, including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, which is at, or informed by, the forefront of defined aspects of a discipline with an appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge.
- Demonstrate an ability to deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within occupational therapy practice and apply the methods and techniques learned to review, consolidate, extend, and apply your knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects.
- Demonstrate a comprehensive and diverse range of applied technical skills to effectively carry out occupational therapy assessment, intervention and evaluations in a range of environments.
- Demonstrate the ability to manage your own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, referenced research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline) and communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
- Critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution, or identify a range of solutions, to a problem.
- Demonstrate readiness for occupational therapy employability through the accumulation of relevant applied experience and knowledge of continual professional development strategies to support lifelong learning and refinement of professional practice.
You will need a good degree in a related subject (normally 2:1 or above) or hold a professional qualification such as teaching, nursing, social work or an allied health profession. Applicants with a 2:1 in a non-related subject will be considered on an individual basis.
We will consider applicants who have other qualifications or experience, equivalent to degree level. If you've got other qualifications or relevant experience, please contact The Gateway for further advice before applying.
You will need to supply evidence in the personal statement on the application form that demonstrates your suitability for the MSc Occupational Therapy programme and your reasons for wanting to study the course.
International Applicants
Your qualifications need to be deemed equivalent to the above entry requirements.
- English Language requirements are normally IELTS 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each element. You will also need to obtain a certificate of good conduct/character and any other references from your home country, and this will be required to ensure you pass the UK police (DBS) checks that are a requirement of the course.
- For further information relating to overseas qualification please use the following link https://www.wlv.ac.uk/international/our-locations/your-country/
Other Requirements
You will be required to provide a satisfactory personal statement and reference (academic or employer).
Successfully short listed applicants will be invited to attend a values-based interview.
Read further information regarding interview preparation
Free Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and Occupational Health Check:
Due to the professional nature of some of our courses you may also be required to complete a Declaration of Health and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check. We will coordinate both of these non-academic conditions with you should your course require this and you receive an offer from us
There will be no cost for the DBS this is free to applicants who have secured an offer and have chosen to study at the University of Wolverhampton.
Entry to this programme requires a satisfactory occupational health assessment. You are required to complete a health questionnaire and meet occupational health requirements. If you are accepted onto the programme, all your vaccinations will need to be up to date before you attend placement and the University provides a vaccination programme to ensure that you are appropriately covered.
During the programme you will be required to attend placements, so it is essential that you are able and willing to travel to placement.
The University will make reasonable adjustments for any candidate who has a disability recognised under the Equality Act, 2010 but we ask that you contact the University in advance to enable us to make adjustments.
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) will be assessed in advance of your entry to the programme and will be considered in line with professional body standards and university regulations. If you have other qualifications or relevant experience, please contact The Gateway for further advice before applying.
If you have previously studied a professional programme at another University or College, we will require an academic reference from your previous higher education institution.
You will need to demonstrate that, on entry to the programme, you have capability for digital and technological literacy to meet course outcomes. Evidence of your digital literacy and technological literacy capability is linked to the online application process.
Feedback from students studying this course includes enjoying:
- regular use of SUCCESS members
- use of simulation suites to aid and facilitate learning
- use of other MDT professionals, such as psychology and mental health nursing to support teaching
- the external guest lecturers and we have had talks around positive behavioural support and also transgender awareness
- supportive teaching team
- support on assessments and find the feedback useful
- the learning and teaching styles on the modules and different modes of teaching also
- the inclusivity in assessments and the range of assessment styles provided
- it being a course accredited to 20 students as this helps build strong connections within the course with peer mates.
- leading on group sessions also within the course.
"Health and Care Professions Council, the (HCPC)"
Approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) for the purpose of providing eligibility to apply for registration with the HCPC as an occupational therapist.
College of Occupational Therapists (COT)
Accredited by the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) for the purpose of ensuring graduates are fit for the profession.
Tuition Fees Loan (Home Fee Status):
By studying an undergraduate or postgraduate pre-registration programme you are eligible for a Tuition Fee loan. of up to £9,535. The loan will support your studies and enable you to start a rewarding career in healthcare.
Changes for EU students:
The UK government has confirmed that EU students starting courses from 1 August 2021 will normally be classified as Overseas (International) students for fee purposes. More information about the change is available at UKCISA:EU citizens living in the UK with 'settled' status, and Irish nationals living in the UK or Ireland, will still be classified as Home students, providing they meet the usual residency requirements, for more information about EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) .
NHS Learning Support Fund
All eligible nursing , midwifery and most allied health professionals' students on pre-registration courses will also receive a Training Grant of at least £5,000 per year that is not means-tested and will not have to be repaid.
An additional payment of up to £3,000 per academic year will be available to eligible students;
• £2,000 for students with children towards childcare costs
• £1,000 Special Subject Payment on certain shortage specialism courses
Among others, the shortage specialisms have been confirmed to include:
• Mental health nursing
• Learning disability nursing
• Podiatry
Please note that this additional NHS funding is not available for students on the Foundation Year of a 4-year degree
Additional funding:
The Learning Support Fund also offers students additional support while studying for their degree. This includes:
• Additional travel and accommodation costs to clinical placements over their normal daily travel costs
• An exceptional hardship fund of up to £3,000 per student per academic year
You can find more information on the NHS Business Services pages.
