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Health industry placements - On placement


Contents

Introduction

This section of the toolkit can support your discussions with employers when preparing for the industry placement, and planning placement midpoint reviews. It shows how to monitor progress throughout the placement and can help you set and monitor learning objectives for students on placement.

Use these resources to:

  • review induction and progress reviews used in placements
  • make sure T Level students receive a comprehensive introduction to their placement
  • make sure T Level students know how much progress they are making towards their learning objectives.

How to use these resources

Select the relevant resources for your needs:

  1. Planning induction
  2. Monitoring progress
  3. Setting objectives

Use to plan induction, monitor progress, and set objectives. Decide whether they can be used as they are, or should be altered to suit your organisation.

Who are they for?

Share the templates, checklists, and examples with staff who are involved in planning students’ induction to the workplace, monitoring / reviewing their progress during the placement, and setting objectives:

  • staff in employer engagement
  • T Level course leaders and tutors.

Induction

The employer induction planning template and a checklist of what can be included during the induction. It can be used to:

  1. guide provider discussions with employers
  2. identify the people involved and the resources needed, such as policies and the student handbook
  3. help students feel settled from the start of their placement.

Template: Induction

Checklist: Induction

Induction
Key questions Suggestions
What is the purpose of induction?
  • To set the scene for students
  • To help them navigate the rules and expectations of the workplace, the different relationships, protocols, values, and priorities
  • To mirror the employer’s usual induction process as far as possible
When will it take place?
  • An induction should take place prior to the student starting their placement. This must be at the latest as soon as the placement starts, day 1 or week 1
Who plans it?
  • Employers, for example, the placement supervisor
  • Providers can help make sure that a student’s relative inexperience and potential vulnerabilities are considered
What is in it? See a Day 1 Induction Checklist

What does it cover and how?

  • A team meeting, tour of the department, job shadowing to enable the student to meet the team
  • The employer’s policies for mobile phone and social media use, uniform and dress codes, sickness and absence procedures, wellbeing support, how to respond to bullying or inappropriate behaviour. This could come in the form of a new employee handbook (Example 1)
  • Health, safety, and wellbeing at work, through online training or handbook (see next section)
  • Safeguarding policies, processes, reporting arrangements, and mandatory training, such as through discussion with supervisor or mentor
  • Premises including main access points for entering the building, layout, emergency exits, toilets, changing rooms and lockers, food, kitchens, rest rooms, and storerooms, delivered through a tour of the building
  • Security procedures, confidentiality, and privacy, through online training or handbook
  • Email addresses, IT systems, logins, and software packages, from a briefing with the IT administrator
  • Working hours and patterns including shifts, start and finish times, and breaks, for example through discussion with a supervisor
  • Remuneration including travel allowances, placement payments, and discounts, through discussion with a supervisor
  • Values, behaviours, and expectations, in a discussion with a supervisor or mentor
What are the health and safety requirements?
  • Vaccination status and checks
  • DBS status
  • Health and safety officer contact details
  • Emergency evacuation procedures
  • Risk assessment
  • Prohibited areas/activities
  • Safety equipment
  • Hygiene standards
  • First aid
  • Accident reporting
  • Lifting and handling
  • Hazardous substances
  • Cleaning and waste
What role does the supervisor play?
  • Leads the student on their learning journey
  • Explains the core business; how the role fits into the organisation
  • Explains how to approach colleagues and patients
  • Explains where and when to take a break
  • Helps the student to develop their skills and confidence
  • Monitors the student’s performance
What is the role of the mentor?
  • Helps the student to navigate new experiences and emotions and cope with the workplace environment
  • Shares first-hand knowledge and experience
  • Supports learning
  • See guide to mentoring

Example 1

Northern Care Alliance has developed a T Level Student Handbook to prepare students for their industry placement and give them a point of reference throughout. It contains key information such as Trust Value Statements, what is expected of the student in terms of professional behaviour, teamwork, communications, and achieving placement goals. It also includes a questionnaire allowing students to identify areas in which they feel more, or less confident.

Monitoring progress

This resource consists of a checklist of how to prepare for and conduct an industry placement midpoint review. It also contains a template for a review and a student and employer feedback form. It can be used to:

  1. Prepare for midpoint review
  2. Ensure that the review covers all relevant aspects of the student’s experience on the industry placement
  3. Show how employers can contribute.

Checklist: midpoint review

Midpoint review
Key questions Suggestions
Who designs the review process?
  • T Level course leader and/or tutors
  • Specialist work placement assessment team
  • The employer
What is its main purpose?
  • To consider what the employer is providing and how the student is responding
  • To assess whether the expectations identified in the industry placement agreement are being met
What should it cover?
  • The student’s performance and behaviour against learning goals
  • Activities undertaken by the student, including where they have worked, what they have done, and how they have contributed
  • Whether the employer’s expectations are being met
  • Any concerns over absence or other issues
  • Whether the role is providing an experience that develops skills and matches the occupational specialisms for the appropriate pathway
  • Welfare and safeguarding
  • Whether the student is being sufficiently stretched by the work they are doing on the placement
  • Whether the student is having a positive experience
Who is involved?
  • Course leaders and/or tutors with the expertise to ensure that skills and knowledge for the relevant health pathway are understood and accurately recorded
  • Placement supervisor and mentors
  • Staff involved in providing pastoral care
How is it conducted?
  • Face-to-face, virtually, or by telephone. It is good practice to conduct at least two of the reviews face-to-face

What should the student know?

  • When and where the assessment takes place?
  • Who is involved?
  • What the process is?
  • What do they need to bring with them, for example, evidence of learning, activity logs, or reflections?
  • How are the outcomes of the assessment recorded?
  • Who is the information shared with?

How is progress tracked?

  • Providers often use a standardised process to track student’s progress while they are on placement
  • Software packages may be used, for example, Grofar, MAPS, Collsys
  • Employers can track and monitor progress themselves

How do employers give feedback?

  • Employers need to know what they are reporting on before the placement starts
  • Providers may supply templates to make sure employers provide the relevant information, incorporating progress indicators
  • Templates should include ‘free-form’ sections for employers to write their feedback, as well as limited choice questions
What are the outcomes?
  • Assurance that students are enjoying and benefiting from the placement and that employers are happy with the way it is going
  • Any adjustments that must be made, such as moving students to alternative roles, departments, or even new placements

Templates: for midpoint review

Setting objectives

Introduction

This resource consists of examples of innovative practice in setting and monitoring learning objectives for students while they are on industry placements. It can be used to:

  1. Review how placement objectives are set and monitored
  2. Identify how the process can be improved.

Examples where colleges have introduced innovative practice

Area of innovative practice Examples
1. Mentors Frimley Health Trust has found that allocating each student two mentors provides a higher level of continuity of training and support for the student. The mentors share responsibility for the student’s learning and work opportunities. The student is also able to see different perspectives and benefit from experiencing diverse ways of working.
2. Progress tracking Weston College has created a bespoke system to avoid the longer-term licence costs of commercial systems. The platform holds a map of the curriculum and an overview of placement duties linked to individual learning goals. Tutors can view the student’s recorded progress and ensure they can link their learning back to their curriculum. This information is the basis of discussions for the midpoint reviews.

Havant and South Downs College use Navigate, a phone-friendly app for capturing, authorising, and tracking all placement hours and progress. It includes employability skills assessments in areas including confidence and timekeeping. The results provide a focus for teaching, placement objective setting and action planning. Subsequent tests then provide the progress and distance travelled and are used to inform midpoint reviews.
3. Roles and responsibilities Chichester College Group has developed a detailed SLA to capture the agreed roles and responsibilities of the provider and the employer. This can also be covered using the three-way agreement between the employer, provider, and student.
4. Sharing good practice As T Levels are developing in a phased way, good practice is available from the T Level areas that were implemented in the earlier phases. Some providers have created an internal forum and networks with other providers to share emerging practice on setting learning goals to benefit from diverse experiences.
5. Use frameworks Frameworks for Delivery can be used to gain ideas for appropriate learning objectives across the different occupational specialisms. Provider teams can add to these from their own experience and the opportunities emerging from placements already underway. A bank of learning objectives, projects and activities can be centrally collated. This is a useful shared resource for current and future placements.

Downloadable resources

Template - induction.docx

Checklist - induction.docx

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