Course summary

The programme provides a progression route to Higher Education which supports the regional skills agenda, including widening participation and increased female participation in STEM. The core academic disciplines are Electronic and Electrical Engineering (EEE) and Mechatronics because these address a regional core skills gap, and will include development of quantitative, digital, knowledge transfer, well being, personal development, problem solving, creativity, reflection and employability skills. The curriculum will include access to facilities across all partners, so that students are integrated into the study communities of all teaching partners; this is crucial to supporting the transition from SCCB to UoB. The wrap-around provision from UCB (including academic and employability skills support, intervention workshops for mathematics skills, and online content) and the mathematics support resources from UoB are key elements missing from existing progression pathways. The programme will provide a parallel path to the first two years of the traditional degree programmes at UoB. The innovation here is the teaching and learning strategy and wrap-around support will be geared towards the student cohort, with the longer terms at SCCB providing the opportunity to do this. Support for summer industrial placements will be built into the programme as “value-added” rather than credit bearing; the experience will connect to the project work through the academic years, for which the syllabus, learning objectives and assessment methods are professionally-focused.