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Social Work with Foundation Year

Course details
  • BA (Hons)
  • 4 Years
  • Full-time including foundation year
  • September 2025
  • Undergraduate
Course location
Main Site

Course summary

Foundation Year
Our Foundation Year provides an excellent alternative route to Keele, providing a unique opportunity to better prepare for your chosen degree, and with guaranteed entry onto your undergraduate course once you successfully complete your Foundation Year. This extra year of study can improve your academic skills, expand your subject knowledge, give you a better understanding of higher education and, perhaps most importantly of all, build your confidence. On the Keele Foundation Year, you'll study on campus, joining our undergraduate community from the outset, with access to all the facilities and support that you'd get as an undergraduate student at Keele.

Social Work
Begin your journey to become a social worker who enables positive change in people’s lives. Support diverse groups of people of all ages, and promote human rights and social justice in a worthwhile and challenging career.

Why choose this course?

  • Regulated by Social Work England with all core academic staff registered as social workers

  • Member of the West Midlands Social Work Teaching Partnership

  • Wide range of social work career specialisms

  • Part of Keele's exceptional School of Medicine which has an excellent reputation in both education and research

  • An international profession offering potential global career opportunities

Social Work at Keele gives you a solid grounding in this professional area of study and supports the development of key professional skills and values ready for your future career as a Social Worker. The programme has been carefully designed to allow you to apply the course theory into a range of exciting, varied and specialist social work occupations in the UK and potentially internationally.

You will explore child, adult and family social work, and cover key elements of the profession including law, social policy, ethics and values, and the socio-economic contexts of social work. You will investigate the impact of inequality and the disadvantages in society around age, race and sexuality. You will examine anti-oppressive and non-discriminatory approaches in social work whilst developing your communication, assessment and decision making skills.

About Keele
Keele University was established in 1949 by the former Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Founded to meet the needs of a changing world, Keele has always had a pioneering vision to be a different kind of university.

We excel in both teaching and research, with some of the most satisfied students in England, and research that is changing lives for the better at a regional, national and global level.

Our beautiful 600-acre campus is one of the biggest in Britain – but all the most important services and facilities are on your doorstep, with accommodation, teaching spaces, facilities including a medical centre, sports centre and pharmacy, and a range of shops, eateries and entertainment venues – including the Students’ Union – clustered around the centre.

Modules

For a list of indicative modules please visit the course page on the Keele University website.

How to apply

Apply by
29 January

This is the deadline for applications to be completed and sent for this course. If the university or college still has places available you can apply after this date, but your application is not guaranteed to be considered.

Application codes

Course code:
L502
Institution code:
K12
Campus name:
Main Site
Campus Code:
-

Points of entry

The following entry points are available for this course:

  • Foundation

Entry requirements

UCAS Tariff
40 points

40 UCAS points from at least 1 A level/level 3 qualification

A level

40 UCAS points from at least 1 A level

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

40 UCAS points from at least 1 level 3 qualification

Access to HE Diploma

40 UCAS points from at least 1 level 3 qualification

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

40 UCAS points from at least 1 level 3 qualification

GCSE/National 4/National 5

GCSE English at grade C (or 4) OR Level 2 Functional Skills English AND GCSE Maths at grade C (or 4) or Level 2 Functional Skills Maths

T Level
P

Pass (D or E)

Please see our website for our full range of entry requirements

Find out more about qualification requirements for this course.

Additional entry requirements

Criminal records declaration (DBS/Disclosure Scotland)
A satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service check (Enhanced plus Barring Lists) will be required for successful candidates.
Interview
Other
Candidates for the social work programme will be selected through a two-part process. Initially, the candidate’s application form and personal statement will be read and its suitability assessed. As well as reaching the required academic standards, the candidate’s personal statement should demonstrate a clear understanding of social work and its values. If this is achieved, candidates will then be invited to a selection day, which will include a written task, a group discussion and an individual interview with academic staff, a social work practitioner and a service user (in most cases). Only those deemed competent via this process will be offered a place. Candidates must also complete a written declaration of their suitability to undertake social work training in respect of health status, criminal convictions and other matters. Attendance at the Selection Day is required ahead of the start of the academic year in which the applicant commences the course.

Historical entry grades data

This section shows the range of grades that students who received offers were previously accepted on to this course with (learn more).

It is designed to support your research but does not guarantee whether you will or won't get a place.

Admissions teams consider various factors, including interviews, subject requirements, and entrance tests. Check all course entry requirements for eligibility.

Not enough data available

We are unable to show previous accepted grades for this course. This could be because the course is new, it's a postgraduate course, there isn't enough historical data, or the provider has opted out of sharing their entry grades data for this course - learn more.

Fees and funding

Tuition fees

No fee information has been provided for this course

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website.

Additional fee information

Our 2025 fee summary is available on our website: keele.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/tuitionfeesandfunding/undergraduatetuitionfees/

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