Postgraduate Diploma in Law

How you're taught

Full-time

Teaching will principally take place through regular intensive seminars/workshops. These interactive sessions provide a vital opportunity to test knowledge and understanding. The sessions will develop skills through student-focussed debate and discussion, problem solving, application of the relevant law and analysis, synthesis and evaluation of your own independent learning. All workshops involve directed and self-directed study and research and facilitate the development of communication skills. Tutor feedback provided in these workshops then provides a platform for continued progress and improvement.

Further learning is facilitated by lectures in each subject area and E-learning activities. In particular, students will be given a considerable number of formative assessments based on Multiple Choice Questions. These are a useful revision tool in themselves, but will also be of assistance to aspiring solicitors in familiarising you with the format of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination.

As the programme progresses, you will be expected to demonstrate greater independence in your planning, preparation, research and reflection to exhibit increased autonomy in your learning and develop the ability to self-assess performance and respond incrementally to feedback provided.

Part-time

All teaching will be on campus with face-to-face teaching on each study weekend; there is no option to attend online.

On the part-time course, teaching is structured around four compulsory residential study weekends in each year, when you come on to campus in Nottingham and learn in small groups alongside your classmates. During these weekends, you will participate in intensive seminars. These interactive sessions provide a vital opportunity to test knowledge and understanding and to develop skills through student-focussed debate and discussion, problem solving, application of the relevant law and analysis, synthesis and evaluation of your own independent learning. All seminars involve directed and self-directed study and research, allowing you to develop the communication skills you’ll need as a lawyer. Throughout the year, you receive tutor feedback on your work, allowing you to progress and develop your skills.

As a part-time student, we see you as just as much a part of the Law School as those students who study with us full-time. The residential study weekends are an important part of that. During those weekends, you will be able to discuss your work directly with your tutors in a group setting and meet the other students in your year, giving you a strong link to face to face support from the Law School itself and the social and peer support element which is of vital importance on a part-time course.

Between the residential study weekends, you will also receive further tuition in the form of online lectures and e-learning activities. You’ll have the opportunity to practice and consolidate your learning online using formative assessments based on Multiple Choice Questions. These are a useful revision tool in themselves, but will also be of assistance to you if you are intending to go on to become a solicitor and take the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), where MCQs are the preferred means of assessment.

As the course progresses, you will be expected to demonstrate greater independence in your planning, preparation, research and reflection to exhibit increased autonomy in your learning and develop the ability to self-assess performance and respond incrementally to feedback provided.

Research-informed teaching

By daring to think differently, our research is tackling real-world issues. The subjects you will study with us are informed by our research so you can be sure your knowledge will be cutting-edge in your field. In the last Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) - the UK's system for assessing the quality and impact of research in universities - we’re proud that 100% of NTU's Law submission was assessed to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

Contact hours

For each 20-credit module, you’ll spend about 200 hours learning overall. Around 40 of those hours will be taught in lectures or seminars. The rest of the time is for independent study, reading, research, or working on assignments.