Ohhh, you're doing it in the language centre? I really don't know anything about their courses, maybe they are the doss you're looking for
In the Italian department, they expect you to be at A-level standard by the end of the year, and in second year you're theoretically good enough that they stop having advanced and ab initio taught separately (ahahahaha, not true). I think basically all we haven't learned are the subjunctive and the pluperfect. It is pretty intense, not so much on the material itself being hard, but trying to cram it all into two hours a week.
For the Italian department course, we use
Conoscere l'italiano, basi grammaticali della lingua italiana by Simona Simula. It's a pretty good book for practising, although written entirely in Italian (which is bizarre, because it really is a beginner's book). The Collin's grammar book is good for learning points, then the Simula book for exercises.
It's crazy. And considering even the French department got their act together a fortnight ago, the Italian and Spanish departments now look REALLY bad haha...