We know it is a big deal, making what seems like a rather life-changing decision.
Choosing a Nutrition course, can feel overwhelming. Some of us did our due diligence, we did the research and now are fully fledged practitioners, loving our ‘work’, enjoying the freedom, the health and fulfilment it brings. But for others, it hasn’t been so straightforward. Some signed up, invested time and money, only to realise it wasn’t quite what they expected. Others are still circling, unsure where to begin, often drawn in by the shine of ‘fancy marketing’ rather than the depth behind it.
If that’s you, you are not alone. With hundreds of courses out there, each promising knowledge, transformation, and career success, it can be hard to know where to begin.
You want to train in nutrition, but are feeling confused about where to study or what to trust.
Before you take the leap, it’s worth asking a few important questions to make sure the course you choose aligns with your values, goals, and the kind of practitioner you want to become. You might want to take a course simply to better understand your own health, with no intention of practising, and that is an option.
Here are some questions we at the New School of Nutrition believe every prospective student should ask before signing up.
- How long is the course and how is it taught? Consider your availability, how you learn best and the commitment a course requires.
- Do I need a qualification in science to apply? This varies according to each course.
- Who is/are the founders, what are their backgrounds? Do they have clinical, academic, or practical experience in the qualification they are offering? Are they actively practising?
- Who are the lecturers/teachers/educators? Are they practising professionals? Are they qualified? Do they bring real‑world experience into the classroom?
- Are the teaching staff interested in teaching? Or are they clocking the hours to recruit students as clients/customers? Honest question and sadly, this happens.
- Will you be supported throughout your studies and will you gain hands-on clinical training? Are there mentors/supervisors, or structured clinics where you can apply your learning?
- Does the school’s vision resonate with you? Every programme has its own ethos, find one that aligns with your values and the kind of practitioner you want to become.
- How are you assessed? Through exams, assignments, live case work, or professional portfolios?
- Will you be able to leave confident and work‑ready, not just well‑informed?
- What can graduates actually do afterwards? Does the qualification open professional doors? Can you practise, run workshops, coach clients, or use it as a foundation for further study?
- Are there additional healing modalities covered? If so, do they lead to a qualification?
- What about AI taking over? Great question
- Is the course recognised? Note that a certificate does not mean it provides a qualification.
- What does the course cover? Is it limited to nutrition basics, complex coaching models, mundane theory, outdated science, or does it include systems thinking, psychology, up-to-date research and practical application?
- What is the ongoing support post-graduation? Finishing a course is one thing, stepping into practice is another. It can feel lonely, and at times you may feel unsure or even a little lost. So what do the course providers have in place?
- Is there an opportunity to visit the School? Ideally, this should be during a real teaching day or webinar, not just a ‘launch’ event or sales session, so that you can experience the teaching as it actually is. It is your chance to meet current students and graduates, connect with the teaching team, and get a genuine feel for the learning environment and quality of the teaching.
New School of Nutrition answers to these important questions
1. How long is the course and how is it taught?
This is a 2-year part-time Diploma, held one weekend a month in London for a total of 20 weekends, with an additional 1 day of clinics per month in year 2. There are assignments set in between teaching weekends.
Our Diploma in Nutrition and Psychological Coaching is taught in person in London, with a limited number of online spaces available for students living 100 miles or more outside the city.
We believe deeper learning and understanding happen in community, through conversations, observations, and shared experiences. In our classrooms, students learn from one another as much as from their lecturers, exploring different perspectives and seeing each topic through many lenses. Learning, in our experience, is dynamic, human, and relational, which cannot be fully captured on a screen.
All lectures are recorded and available on the online learning platform, so you can return to them, reflect, and consolidate your learning as you go.
2. Do I need a qualification in science to apply?No. A formal science background isn’t required; what matters most is curiosity and a genuine interest in understanding the body. Our students come from all walks of life; some have science degrees, others are brand‑new to the field, and some are returning to study after years in different careers. Many with backgrounds in biochemistry, nursing, medicine, or pharmacy find they first need to unlearn before they can learn, to see the body not just as chemistry and systems and blood test markers, but as a living whole, where biology and psychology constantly influence each other.
We teach science in a way that is clear, practical, and integrated into the modules using real case examples and discussion rather than memorisation. You will be guided step‑by‑step through the fundamentals, building confidence and fluency as you go.
We share recommended reading, podcasts, and short online materials that cover key concepts, from basic biochemistry to human physiology. These are more helpful not only in nurturing curiosity but also in avoiding the boredom that students often experience when basic science, including anatomy and physiology, is taught in a traditional manner.
3. Who is the Founder/Principal, and how are they involved? Dr. Khush Mark is the Founder and Principal of the New School of Nutrition. A former cancer research scientist, she retrained in nutritional therapy and brings over two decades of experience in integrative health to her teaching.
Khush is also a qualified homeopath and a Rapid Transformational Therapist (RTT), bringing a uniquely holistic perspective to her work. She personally creates the nutrition modules at the School and is known for making complex topics clear, relatable, and engaging.
Her curiosity and energy fill the classroom. She is deeply passionate about both the science of nutrition and the art of teaching it, she inspires students to think critically, compassionately, and creatively about the human body and mind.
4 and 5. Who are the tutors/lecturers? Our tutors are all qualified nutritional therapists and/or psychological coaches who are actively practising in their fields. They bring real‑world experience into the classroom, sharing insights from clinic, client work, and their own continued learning. Each tutor is passionate about evidence‑based practice and the human side of change, creating a dynamic environment where theory meets lived experience. At the New School of Nutrition, you learn from people who don’t just teach the work, they live it.
6. Will you be supported throughout your studies and will you gain hands-on clinical training? From Year 1, every student is allocated a personal drop‑in session with one of the course tutors, a dedicated space to review progress, raise questions. In Year 2, students also take part in group supervision throughout the year, building reflective practice and professional confidence alongside their peers.
At every teaching weekend, students begin with a check‑in, which is a time to share how they are, what support they might need, and how they are experiencing the course. Weekends close with a check‑out. What was this weekend like? What felt difficult? Where did you grow? At the New School, with the integration of coaching, there is a fundamental focus on the inner work; who you are becoming is just as important, if not more than, the knowledge gained or the assignment grades.
In Year 2, our students take part in monthly student clinics, with one day each month dedicated to hands‑on learning (excluding the teaching weekend). These clinics are organised by the students, overseen by the School, and supervised by Dr Khush Mark and her team of experienced clinical supervisors, each with up to 10 years of practice.
The clinics are a core part of the learning journey, where classroom knowledge comes alive through working with real people and real cases. This is where students gain confidence, clinical empathy, and the ability to think critically with continued support from the supervision team. These clinics are fundamental to our training, as the learning here is not about knowing more, but about knowing what to do with a real person in front of you.
7. Does the school’s vision resonate with you? Our vision is to raise 21st‑century practitioners qualified in nutrition therapy and psychological coaching, who are grounded in evidence‑based science, attuned to human psychology, and able to bring everyday life connections to their work. We believe in wholeness, curiosity, and compassion. We go beyond the food on the plate. At the New School, it is not just what people eat, but how they live, think, and feel.
8. How are you assessed? At the New School of Nutrition, assessment isn’t about memorising information for an exam and forgetting it a week later. There are no traditional exams.
Instead, you are assessed through ongoing coursework and assignments that are directly relevant to real life and clinical practice. What you learn starts to show up in how you eat, think, observe, and work with others from the very beginning.
Assignments at the New School are designed to help you:
- Apply what you have learned to everyday life
- Think through real-life scenarios and cases
- Build clinical reasoning step by step
- Integrate nutrition with psychological coaching
Learning here is experiential, you learn by doing. Changes often begin from the first teaching weekend, whether it’s how you approach your own health, your habits, or how you start to see others. By the time you graduate, you are not only informed, but you are also ‘practised’, confident, and able to apply your knowledge in the real world.
9. Will you be able to leave confident and work‑ready, not just well‑informed? Yes. Our graduates leave with confidence, not just with a Diploma. Our diploma is real-life learning with everyday examples, and our graduates can translate what they’ve learned into everyday life.
10. What can you do after qualifying? Our graduates go on to:
- Coach clients one‑to‑one or in groups
- Run workshops and community programmes
- Create and run online courses for the public , such as gut health, hormones, family nutrition, overwhelm, and life transitions
- Create and sell menu plans and wellbeing guides
- Provide personalised nutrition plans, with or without the guidance of functional testing
- Write, speak, and educate others, such as in corporations, schools, and beyond
- Work within private clinics such as functional medicine clinics
- Integrate their learning into their existing practice, whether that’s herbalism, yoga, kinesiology, homeopathy, or another modality
This diploma is designed to help you practise, teach, and lead with competence and compassion, whether you are building a new career or expanding the one you already have.
11. Are there additional healing modalities covered? Yes. Our Diploma integrates both Nutrition (50% of the Diploma content) and Psychological Coaching (35% of the Diploma content), so you qualify as a Nutritional Therapist and a Psychological Coach. We also teach a comprehensive Rapid Relief Homeopathy module (15% of the Diploma content). This doesn’t qualify you as a homeopath, but the content sits within the broader scope of naturopathic practice and our graduates are trained and qualified to use it (read more on our Rapid Relief Module HERE). We believe in an integrative approach to healing, as no single modality meets the needs of 21st-century health challenges or the complexity of the human being. These modalities are:
12. What about AI taking over? AI can already generate a nutrition protocol in seconds. It can interpret lab results, flag concerns, and produce supplement plans and it will only get faster and better at this.
But it cannot understand the person behind the data.
- AI cannot sit with a person.
- It cannot notice what isn’t being said.
- It cannot understand why someone who knows what to eat still doesn’t do it.
- It cannot hear the frustration behind the question, or the fear behind the symptom(s).
- It cannot connect the data to the individual’s specific needs.
The practitioners who will matter in the next decade won’t be the ones with the most protocols or lab test results; they will be the ones who can think, adapt, and work with another human being in all their complexity.
13. Is the course recognised? (Not ‘aligned with’, not ‘inspired by’ but actually recognised). Our two-year Diploma is is recognised and approved by:
- European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC)
- Federation of Nutritional Therapy Practitioners (FNTP)
- Complementary Medical Association (CMA)
This means you graduate with a recognised, professional qualification, not just a certificate. You qualify as a Nutritional Therapist AND a Psychological Coach.
14. What does the course cover? Our course is extensive, practical and relevant. For more on the course content, you can download the SYLLABUS HERE.
15. What is the ongoing support post-graduation? We understand, because we are practitioners ourselves, that stepping out into practice can feel lonely, especially in a field that often goes against the tide.
The learning doesn’t stop once you qualify. In many ways, that is when the real questions begin, our clients are one of our best teachers! We offer a postgraduate alumni programme that provides ongoing clinical support, group supervision, continued learning, and a community you remain part of. We know that one of the loneliest moments in a practitioner’s journey is often the one right after qualifying.
So we have built something to support you beyond the diploma, not just to help you start, but to help you grow.
16. Is there an opportunity to visit the School? Yes. We encourage anyone looking to apply, or who has applied, to come and meet us, our students, our teachers, as well as some of our graduates. We have Open Days which run during regular teaching weekends, so you can see real classes in action. You get to meet our current students and some of our graduates and get a feel for the learning environment, community energy, and the learning space.
These are some of the foundational questions we believe matter when choosing a course. You can explore more common questions that we receive, HERE.
Visit us on an open day
You will get a sense of what makes the School special, an engaged community where everyone knows your name, a curriculum that integrates nutrition with science and psychology, and tutors passionate about what they teach.
You might find that our hands‑on, connected style is exactly what you’ve been looking for. And if you realise you prefer something larger or entirely online, that’s important too, the goal is finding the right fit for you as well as for us.
If you can’t make it in person, drop us a line HERE, and we would be happy to connect with you.
At the New School of Nutrition, we are a community of learners and teachers invested in growth, rigour, and community.
Join us at our next Open Day and discover if the New School feels like your place.
Ready to apply? APPLY HERE
To Health!
From the team at The New School Of Nutritional Medicine
Learn about the Founder & Principal of the New School of Nutritional Medicine, Dr Khush Mark PhD HERE.
