Sport Conditioning, Rehabilitation & Massage - BSc (Hons) Degree

This degree can be studied as a three-year full-time degree or a four-year degree that includes a year of foundational study. Our Foundation Year in Sport is intended to prepare you for your subsequent years of studying, offering you the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence.

The Foundation Year in Sport will be relevant to:

• Students who have not achieved the required A-level points (or equivalent) score to enter the first year of the degree programme.
• Mature students who have been out of the formal education system for some time.

Find out more about the Foundation Year in Sport.

Please note: You will need to apply using a specific UCAS code if you wish to undertake the 4 years including foundation.

The SCRAM degree takes an interdisciplinary approach to applied sport science. By integrating strength and conditioning, rehabilitation, and massage across all modules, you develop a versatile skill set. This reflects the diverse demands of professional practice in sport, health, and performance, preparing you for multifaceted career paths.

Year 1 (120 credits)

You’ll study the foundations of musculoskeletal anatomy, performance science, movement screening, and training methods, exploring how the body moves, functions, and adapts. Practical experiences – such as coaching peers, assessing movement, and designing training strategies – are combined with early academic and professional development, fostering interdisciplinary thinking and reflective practice.

All compulsory modules:

• Musculoskeletal Anatomy (20 credits)
• Human Performance Science (20 credits)
• Professional and Academic Development (40 credits)*
• Fundamentals of Training (20 credits)
• Movement Screening (20 credits)

Year 2 (120 credits)

You’ll apply knowledge in interdisciplinary, client-focused contexts, developing skills in injury assessment, manual therapy, programming, and coaching. You’ll deepen your understanding of pedagogy, clinical reasoning, and applied science through practical, research-informed modules delivered via supervised clinics, embedded qualifications, and case-based tasks, strengthening your ability to deliver safe, effective interventions across the SCRAM spectrum. Modules include:

All compulsory modules:

• Programming Principles for Performance and Injury (20 credits)
• Coaching Pedagogy (20 credits)
• Project-Based Learning (40 credits)*
• Injury Pathology and Management (40 credits)

Year 3 (120 credits)

You’ll demonstrate autonomy and professional competence through applied research projects, industry placements, and athlete case management in both simulated and real-world environments. Working directly with clients, athletes, and organisations, you’ll solve complex professional problems while consolidating technical expertise, refining critical thinking, and building confidence for careers or postgraduate study across performance sport, health, and community settings.

All compulsory modules:

• Athlete Profiling (20 credits)
• Industry Placement (20 credits)
• Contemporary Issues in Sport (20 credits)
• Applied Case Study (20 credits)
• Final Project (40 credits)*

The overall goal of the SCRAM degree is to challenge siloed learning and work towards a model that reflects the interdisciplinary reality of the sport and health professions. As a graduate of the degree, you will be a confident, competent, and reflective practitioner with a unique blend of expertise that makes you highly adaptable and valuable in a wide range of employment settings.

*Modules available through the medium of Welsh.

Effective learning, teaching and assessment methods underpin the educational aims and the learning outcomes of all our programmes and modules. Throughout our undergraduate degrees we focus on providing the authentic learning experiences to both challenge and develop all our students. Authentic learning is a learner-centred approach in which you’ll develop your knowledge and skills by engaging in, and addressing, real life problems that demand the use of higher order thinking skills, real world resources and tools while thinking and acting like an expert within the context of your degree. Across the range of undergraduate sport degrees, you’ll experience “project and practice ways of working”, where you’ll experience working on real challenges, projects or problems set by people and communities that value to support and solutions that you can offer and acknowledge the value of learning through real experiences.

To facilitate authentic learning, we utilise a diverse range of learning and teaching methods that may include lectures, seminars, workshops, tutorials and practical sessions. All of these are supported by our Virtual Learning Environment which is an integral but flexible aspect of the learning package that supports your needs. Typically, lead lectures introduce key topics, concepts and challenges, whilst seminars, tutorials, workshops and practical sessions focus on the application of key concepts with the aim of enhancing your student experience and engagement. We work hard to provide authentic, student-centred learning opportunities that deliver a high quality and flexible learning environment but focuses on enabling you to develop into a flexible, highly employable graduate of the future.

Learning and teaching methods will also emphasise and facilitate the development of your critical reasoning and encourage the integration of practice and theory. Throughout your studies, you will experience both tutor-led learning and self-directed methods of learning, increase independence and reflection and encourage you to develop a positive attitude toward lifelong learning. Along the way you’ll have the support of a Personal Academic Tutor who is there to support you pastorally and academically during your time at Cardiff Met.

We aim to help you to develop into a reflective professional and critical scholar.

In your sport degree at Cardiff Met, you will encounter a learning experience from induction to graduation that is coherent, challenging and develops your confidence, competence and identity within your programme of study.

Specific features of the learning experience on the Sport Conditioning, Rehabilitation and Massage (SCRAM) degree include:

• Internationally renowned researchers and professionally accredited practitioners that are integral to the learning package offered to our students.
• Recently upgraded, cutting-edge SCRAM facilities designed to enhance your learning experience.
• All aspects of Learning and Teaching utilise the most recent research literature and National Occupational Standards (e.g., UKSCA, NSCA, SMA, BASRaT, National Governing Body, NGB, coaching qualifications).
• Widely recognised as one of the flagship strength and conditioning, rehabilitation and massage programmes in the UK, and one of the only programmes to utilise an interdisciplinary approach.

The assessment strategies for each module vary to ensure that most appropriate method is implemented for your area of study. Modes of assessment are designed to both enhance but also challenge your learning experience whilst ensuring that you have fulfilled the learning outcomes linked to each module. Assessment also ensures that you have achieved the standard required to progress to the next stage or to qualify for an award. The modules are designed to support your learning experience by providing opportunities for you to engage in formative and summative assessments to test your knowledge, ability, skill, and critical understanding. The undergraduate modules are assessed using a diverse range of assessment methods. For example:

• Written coursework
• Group challenges
• Oral presentations
• Portfolios of work and evidence
• Seen and unseen exams
• Practical skills
• Viva voce examinations
• Professional discussions
• Industry placements and situational learning
• Other activities designed to assess, develop, and enhance academic and employability skills

You will be expected to complete a final project as part of the assessment of your honour’s degree. Final projects are major pieces of work that may be a research, innovation, consultancy or community project.

The nature of the SCRAM degree requires you to demonstrate both theory (evidence-based practice and clinical reasoning) and application (clinical, practical and coaching skills), and therefore assessments within SCRAM modules include both theoretical assessments and discussions alongside practical assessments in applied settings.

All undergraduate sport degrees are underpinned by the Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences employability framework. This framework has been developed as a holistic curricular and extra-curricular approach to embedding employability across the undergraduate portfolio, and ensures programmes recognise and develop opportunities to enhance your employability by blending the following elements:

• Disciplinary knowledge
• Work based learning
• Work related learning
• Career development planning
• Entrepreneurship and enterprise education
• Graduate skills and lifelong learning
• Developing professional identity

During your first year of study, you will get the opportunity to undertake professional development activities across a diverse range of industry relevant areas including sport coaching, exercise training, and health and safety. These opportunities will ensure that you have the appropriate qualifications and experience to progress with your studies and, where your programme requires it, apply for one of the many work placement opportunities on offer both on and off campus. We will also support you to seek opportunities to work or study abroad or engage in a year in industry.

Recent graduates from SCRAM are now working in professional sports teams, academy sports teams as well as with national governing bodies of sport. Many students also pursue opportunities in private clinical practice or in fitness industry settings. Other students have continued onto further study in the field of Physiotherapy or onto master’s programmes such as the BASRaT endorsed MSc Sports Rehabilitation or MSc Strength and Conditioning and further progressed to doctoral level studies.

Typical Offers

The following requirements are based on typical offers relevant to entering Year 1 of the degree.

If you do not meet these entry requirements, we also offer a Foundation Year which allows progression to Year 1 upon successful completion.

• Tariff points: 120-128
• Contextual offer: See our contextual offers page.
• GCSE: Five GCSEs at Grade C / 4 or above to include English Language / Welsh First Language, Mathematics / Mathematics – Numeracy and Science.
• English Language Requirement: Academic IELTS 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in all elements, or equivalent.
• A level subjects: Three A levels. Grades BB to include Science.
• Relevant subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, PE / Sport Studies, Psychology, Mathematics or Social Biology considered as the equivalent Science. Welsh Advanced Skills Baccalaureate considered as a third subject.
• BTEC National / Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma: DMM-DDM in Science or PE.
• T Level: Distinction in a Science subject.
• Access to Higher Education Diploma: 15 Level 3 credits at Distinction and 30 Level 3 credits at Merit.
• International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: 1 Higher Level Grade 6 and 1 Higher Level Grade 5. H6 in Science.
• Irish Leaving Certificate: 3 x H2 to include Science. Higher level subjects only considered with a minimum grade H4.
• Scottish Advanced Highers: Grades CC to include Science. Scottish Highers are also considered, either on their own or in combination with Advanced Highers.

Combinations of the above qualifications are accepted if they meet our minimum requirements. If your qualifications aren’t listed, please contact Admissions or refer to the UCAS Course Search.

Further information on Overseas qualifications can be found here.

If you are a mature applicant, have relevant experience or RPL that you would like us to consider, please contact Admissions.

How to Apply

Further information on how to apply can be found here.

For general enquiries, please contact the Admissions Team on 029 2041 6044 or email askadmissions@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

For course specific enquiries, please contact the Programme Support Team:

• Email: CSSHSLTSE@cardiffmet.ac.uk