BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy

Why study this subject?

Working in Sports Therapy, you’ll be concerned with preventing injury and rehabilitating patients back to peak fitness. You'll learn to be a confident and effective professional who is able to provide care to a range of sport, exercise and recreational participants as well as members of the public.

You could find yourself working with individual athletes and teams as part of a big organisation or running your own private practice. Sports therapists differ from other therapists because they focus primarily on sport related injuries.

Sports Therapists play a key role in sports teams and organisations, as you allow professionals to: increase performance, cope with the rigours of competition, improve their training regime, keep consistent and most importantly continue to enjoy sport! There are a range of career options for a sports therapist both at professional and amateur level.

This course is also offered as four-year programmes, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme.

Why study at Buckinghamshire New University?

In today’s world, work experience is becoming more and more essential to getting a job, so as part of our multi million pound investment into our human performance, exercise and wellbeing centre, we created our very own working sports therapy clinic here at BNU. This facility is open to the public and is staffed by students with the support of lecturers, so you can get the experience you need while studying.

Learning will be encouraged through practical sessions, debates, observation, field trips, formal lectures and interactive seminars. At the core of each module in practical delivery is the Human performance and exercise wellbeing centre, the sports therapy teaching room and the Sports & Wellbeing Clinic.

At BNU, we have strong links with local sports organisations like the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey (home to several governing bodies of sport) and Stoke Mandeville Hospital (the birthplace of the Paralympics). Our placement opportunities are a great way for you to learn and network.

We also have close relationships with Wycombe Wanderers FC, Wycombe Hospital, Norwich City FC, Reading Ladies Football Club, and The FA. You could have the opportunity to attend national events like The London Marathon and provide hands-on care for athletes before and after their competition.

BNU offers you the opportunity to get all the skills, qualifications and experience you need, within a 30-minute commute to London, surrounded by a friendly student community and the opportunity to take part in free societies. Thanks to our big deal you can meet new people, take part in sports and make friends for life here!

With such a great opportunity to learn from the industry professionals, gain from working experience, take part in placements, study sport science and gain the skills you need.

What facilities can I use?

As part of your course you are required to complete increasing hours of placement activities within a Sports Therapy setting, building levels of responsibility and applying your knowledge of theory to your practice. To enable this, we invested in creating a professional range of state-of-the-art facilities for use over the entirety of the course at all levels.

As part of your studies, you’ll use The Human Performance, Exercise and Wellbeing Centre, a professional and inspiring facility for our sport courses and contains industry standard equipment which is a part of your degree.

The Sports and Wellbeing Clinic is a real working clinic within the University and puts you directly in your workplace from day one. Members of the public pay for appointments in this student run clinic as well as professional athletes and sports teams, which gives you the opportunity to experience working in a clinic first hand.

Our Human Performance Lab is an additional facility which is designed to test and research the human body. It has been designed to enhance athletes through scientific analysis and develop the most effective strength and conditioning regime for their body types.

We also have our gateway gym where you can get personalised help and advice from personal trainers and use a range of fitness equipment yourself, Heavily discounted for students.

In addition, our library is open 24/7 and packed with all the information you need for your assessments – you’ll have access to hundreds of specialist books, scientific research, articles and online journals. Not to mention there’s plenty of room to knuckle down for some quiet study time.

We’ll also sign you up to our Virtual Learning Environment which means you’ll have access to lots of online resources wherever you are! This is not a replacement for your course content which is taught primarily in person.

What will I study?

The primary aim of this course is to help you graduate with confidence in your abilities, with the knowledge, skills and experience to be a successful sports therapist. In addition, we are here to help you with, or discover, any professional or personal goals you want to pursue.

Our course will take you through the processes of injury prevention, assessment, therapeutic treatment, and exercise rehabilitation in order to return the patient back to work, full muscular functionality and their previous sport or exercise level. The underpinning basis of Sports Therapy is Sports Science, so we will explore this subject too.

Throughout the course you will be taking part in many practical classes with the emphasis of hands-on skills and experience. In order to truly develop these skills to make you the very best therapist by the time you graduate, this course ensures you put theory into practice by completing placements and having experience of various settings throughout the three years of the degree.

This approach has enabled our previous graduates to be experienced therapists at the point of graduation, leading to a great employment rate into the profession. We will help you distinguish the role, scope and your relationship with allied professions.

You’ll also explore the biomechanics of human movement, physiology and functional anatomy. We will teach you a holistic approach to sports therapy which covers the practice from a multidisciplinary approach. Modules will range from core scientific principles of exercise to injury assessment, treatment and rehabilitation.

You will also learn about human anatomy, health and exercise physiology, therapeutic interventions and scientific research and how they influence sports therapy, graduating with an understanding of current knowledge but also its limitations. In your final year, you’ll work closely with your personal tutor to dive more deeply into an area you’re passionate about and deliver your final dissertation project on a subject of your choice.

You will learn the skills needed to help you become a confident and proficient self-employed sports therapist, With an increased knowledge of the core themes and research within sport science, therapy and exercise science we will help you become confident, inspired, empowered and employed.

How will I be taught and assessed?

Your course adopts a varied method of assessment. These will include practical assessments, presentations, vivas, reports/essays, case studies, and work-related assessments with evidence of achievement in practice. Learners will have the opportunity to access a variety of electronic resources including journal articles, on-line books, electronic databases, internet sources and material from the library.

You will be expected to consult academic journals more widely in the second and third year as you develop your academic study and writing skills. As per the teaching and learning strategy, the specific assessment methods are determined at modular level, but are designed to reflect the course aims and learning outcomes, to equip learners with industry knowledge and experience.

While there is a varied diet of assessment at all three levels, it is predominantly based on coursework and practical assessments and, where possible, is designed to mirror ‘real world’ being more authentic in nature to that of Sports Therapy practice.