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need advice - access course to nursing

Next September I'm looking to start an access course to nursing, since my a level grades were an absolute shambles. I'm currently looking for a full time job as a care assistant. I looked at my local college, and the units which consist in the course is mainly biology, alongside sociology and psychology.

Here's the colleges website: http://www.leedscitycollege.ac.uk/courses-apprenticeships/departments/access-to-higher-education/access-to-higher-education-diploma-health-science-professions-level-3/

I just want to know how does it work? what does it mean by 60 credits etc? How big is the work load?

Thank you
Reply 1
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c.w.2015
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The whole course is worth 60 credits. 15 are ungraded (study skills etc) then the 45 remaining are graded at a pass/merit/distinction. Depending on where you study after depends on how many you need, for example I need 30 at a merit or above to get accepted to my Uni.

So far it's not too bad, We do 14hrs a week in college and they expect the same or more at home when we get work. We started our biology at KS3 levels and within a few hrs up to GCSE level. They expect you to be working at Alevel workload after a few weeks/months. The whole course is the equivalent of 2-3 Alevels in a year.
Reply 2
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samina_ay
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Original post by c.w.2015
The whole course is worth 60 credits. 15 are ungraded (study skills etc) then the 45 remaining are graded at a pass/merit/distinction. Depending on where you study after depends on how many you need, for example I need 30 at a merit or above to get accepted to my Uni.

So far it's not too bad, We do 14hrs a week in college and they expect the same or more at home when we get work. We started our biology at KS3 levels and within a few hrs up to GCSE level. They expect you to be working at Alevel workload after a few weeks/months. The whole course is the equivalent of 2-3 Alevels in a year.


thank you for the response, how many exams are there?
Original post by samina_ay
thank you for the response, how many exams are there?

That varies from college to college. Some credits are assessed by coursework and some by exams.
Reply 4
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Mrs X
11
Original post by samina_ay
Next September I'm looking to start an access course to nursing, since my a level grades were an absolute shambles. I'm currently looking for a full time job as a care assistant. I looked at my local college, and the units which consist in the course is mainly biology, alongside sociology and psychology.

Here's the colleges website: http://www.leedscitycollege.ac.uk/courses-apprenticeships/departments/access-to-higher-education/access-to-higher-education-diploma-health-science-professions-level-3/

I just want to know how does it work? what does it mean by 60 credits etc? How big is the work load?

Thank you

Hi there! I am on this course, will start this Thursday, do only 2 full days (Thursday and Friday), but I heard that other groups do 3 days per week. we gonna start with 3 subjects - Health education and society, cell biology and system physiology. By the end of semester 1 we have to hand 2 assignments of system physiology ,2 of health education and society ( it also includes research skills), and 3 assignments of cell biology .
Reply 5
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samina_ay
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Original post by Mrs X
Hi there! I am on this course, will start this Thursday, do only 2 full days (Thursday and Friday), but I heard that other groups do 3 days per week. we gonna start with 3 subjects - Health education and society, cell biology and system physiology. By the end of semester 1 we have to hand 2 assignments of system physiology ,2 of health education and society ( it also includes research skills), and 3 assignments of cell biology .


The work load sounds okay, I had to deal with alot more with actual a levels :colondollar: essay every 2 weeks on top of notes and reviewing etc, haha, thanks for responding. good luck with your uni application x
hiya I did an access course to get onto biomedical science course. I was undecided when I enrolled on my access and chose the nursing pathway. I really enjoyed my course, there was a lot of course work (no exams) but I found the work load less than 1st year of uni! I finished uni this summer and I am starting a masters course in a few weeks. Access was brill for me and I would definitely recommend the course. best thing I ever did. good luck :smile:
Reply 7
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samina_ay
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Original post by kittycat82
hiya I did an access course to get onto biomedical science course. I was undecided when I enrolled on my access and chose the nursing pathway. I really enjoyed my course, there was a lot of course work (no exams) but I found the work load less than 1st year of uni! I finished uni this summer and I am starting a masters course in a few weeks. Access was brill for me and I would definitely recommend the course. best thing I ever did. good luck :smile:


hello, wow that sounds brilliant!! well done!! hope it works out for me too x
Reply 8
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Mrs X
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Original post by samina_ay
The work load sounds okay, I had to deal with alot more with actual a levels :colondollar: essay every 2 weeks on top of notes and reviewing etc, haha, thanks for responding. good luck with your uni application x


Yeah, but our assignments have a different dates to hand as well. Cell biology - 19th of October, 14th of December, 5th of January. HE and society - 9th of November and 25th of January, SP- 2d of November and 11th of January.
Reply 9
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samina_ay
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Original post by Mrs X
Yeah, but our assignments have a different dates to hand as well. Cell biology - 19th of October, 14th of December, 5th of January. HE and society - 9th of November and 25th of January, SP- 2d of November and 11th of January.


woah, so basically consistency is key.
I'm sorry I meant the access was more work than the first year of uni, but it prepares you well. We had 3 units and a research project. I think we handed in assignments for all 3 units around the same time within a few weeks of each other and had a couple of months to do the project. I think there was about 5 assignments for each unit but there was a few elements to each assignment as in an essay, a power point presentation, a debate and a research leaflet type thing from what I can remember for one unit for one assignment.
It was definitely do-able, I have 3 young children and I managed to pass with distinctions in all units. If its what you want, go for it, you will enjoy it :smile:
Reply 11
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samina_ay
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Original post by kittycat82
I'm sorry I meant the access was more work than the first year of uni, but it prepares you well. We had 3 units and a research project. I think we handed in assignments for all 3 units around the same time within a few weeks of each other and had a couple of months to do the project. I think there was about 5 assignments for each unit but there was a few elements to each assignment as in an essay, a power point presentation, a debate and a research leaflet type thing from what I can remember for one unit for one assignment.
It was definitely do-able, I have 3 young children and I managed to pass with distinctions in all units. If its what you want, go for it, you will enjoy it :smile:


wow, congrats on your achievements! really impressive! thank you, that's motivated me alot. yeah i understand there'll be alot of work xx
I would also suggest looking into which uni you want to study at In advance. As I said I was on the nursing pathway and a lot of students didn't get places as nursing is so competitive. working as a care assistant will definitely go in your favour, but go to the open days and talk to the lecturers. At my college they wanted us to apply to UCAS in Nov, I was totally un prepared for this so I would also suggest maybe starting a draft of your personal statement that you can refer back to closer to the time. preparation is most definitely the key lol
Reply 13
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samina_ay
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Original post by kittycat82
I would also suggest looking into which uni you want to study at In advance. As I said I was on the nursing pathway and a lot of students didn't get places as nursing is so competitive. working as a care assistant will definitely go in your favour, but go to the open days and talk to the lecturers. At my college they wanted us to apply to UCAS in Nov, I was totally un prepared for this so I would also suggest maybe starting a draft of your personal statement that you can refer back to closer to the time. preparation is most definitely the key lol


Yes i understand - i already applied for nursing this year, didn't make it past interview stage because of my lack of confidence. Im hoping that getting a real job will help me boost it. Also if i achieve distinctions i can look into other health related professios like radiography etc. Thanks alot for the advice xx
some of the students on my course didn't even make interview stages so that's brill :smile: at least you now know what to expect. I think a few people decided on speech therapy and is it OTP? in the operating theatre? from my course. Good luck in what ever you decide, the good thing about access is a lot of the pathways are quite flexible so you can change direction xx
Reply 15
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samina_ay
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Original post by kittycat82
some of the students on my course didn't even make interview stages so that's brill :smile: at least you now know what to expect. I think a few people decided on speech therapy and is it OTP? in the operating theatre? from my course. Good luck in what ever you decide, the good thing about access is a lot of the pathways are quite flexible so you can change direction xx


Yes exactly. Ive always wanted to do something medical related and to care for people too. Thanks alot. Good luck with the rest of your degree xx
Thank you, I'm nervous about this one. at least they cant take away my BSc if I mess this one up lol. good luck to you xx
Reply 17
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glo420
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@samina_ay i'm in the same position as you. have you thought about doing a foundation degree?
Reply 18
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samina_ay
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Original post by glo420
@samina_ay i'm in the same position as you. have you thought about doing a foundation degree?


i don't think thats worth doing tbh.. bcos you're not always guranteed a place.
Hi I did a health science access course, which covered the same subjects and pretty much had the same module titles described on this thread! It's pretty fast paced. The biology side of things I'd recommend going home and reading up everything from the lesson so that you get used to it (Khan academy is a fantastic website for this).
The subjects cover 45 credits that can be graded pass, merit and distinction, the other 15 are study skills which are pass only but are easy enough to do (apart from research skills which isn't hard, but is time consuming).

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