92% of CLIE Pre-sessional students progress to UCL Master’s degrees

1 November 2019

Two pre-sessional English students discussing in class

92% of students who studied on CLIE’s Pre-sessional English Course this summer have progressed to their target UCL Master’s programme. The top three destinations being, as in previous years, the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences (just over 19%), the Bartlett (12.5 %) and Laws (just over 11%).

These outstanding results were again attributed to a combination of highly motivated students, experienced teachers and an increasingly tailored programme to help them develop and acquire the key academic skills needed to succeed at Master’s level.

Driven students

Pre-sessional Teaching Fellows, Pete Puxon and Luke Roger saw how the students’ hard work and application in the classroom helped dramatically improve their academic English:

“Throughout the course, the students worked very hard to improve all elements of their academic skills. They were constantly engaged with the materials and were proactive in their learning. It was very rewarding to see improvements in their abilities, especially in terms of their academic writing, over a short period of time” - Pete Puxon.

“It is rewarding to see the progress that students make during the course. The students are really enthusiastic and focused and as a result make substantial improvement in their academic style, their ability to use evidence and their construction of argument both in written and spoken English” - Luke Roger:

Course development

The Pre-sessional course continues to develop with the team working very hard behind the scenes to ensure that materials remain relevant and engaging. Higher and lower level booklets were introduced this year to better meet students’ needs, which included ideas from the UCL departments that Pre-sessional students progress to, the Pre-sessional Focus group, teachers and last year’s BALEAP report.

Positive feedback

This course received excellent overall feedback from students and teachers alike. The External Examiner also commended the course, noting in his report that:

“The programme is led by a very able and experienced management team who constantly look at ways to improve the provision and are open to new ideas, at the same time bearing in mind the realities and practicalities of a busy summer period, large student numbers and the courses/disciplines that the students will be progressing on in the new academic year”.

Pre-sessional Course Coordinator, Fiona Wallace, was delighted that these changes had such a positive impact:

"It has been extremely rewarding to see fundamental changes to the programme, which the Pre-sessional team have worked hard to achieve in recent years, settle and continue to develop. I look forward to building on our achievements and thoroughly enjoy working with such a committed team and highly motivated students".