Questions from webinar 01.05.2019

Placements

Doing placements over two years align with T-level duration

■ With T levels the learners have 2 years to complete the placement this being more challenging on the CDF pilot to gather hours in one year – can we count hours started in this academic year as being started this year but will actually be competing in the next academic year?

■ Same question here on 45 days over 2 academic years. Is this possible?

During the 2018 to 2019 academic year we expect institutions to deliver industry placements for at least 10% of the student number used in your CDF allocation. In order for the industry placements you deliver this year to count towards your 10% target for the academic year 2018 to 2019, the hours must be completed between the 1 August 2018 and 31 July 2019. Please ensure you complete the data required on the ILR and school census to meet the final return. More guidance about recording industry placements on the ILR and school census is provided on the CDF factsheet.

DBS checks

■ Where can we find information re DBS requirements for students in placement? This has not been an issue for us so far as we have been working with health, care and early years. My comment re DBS was around employers having DBS where students are placed. what are the requirements, where can we find guidance?

Information can be found in the CDF Guidance, and we recommend providers familiarise themselves with the HSE guidelines. In arranging industry placements, we would not ordinarily expect providers to DBS check the employer or their employees, since this is unnecessarily onerous in terms of employers willing to offer industry placements and for institutions to administer this.

Where a student has a need for personal or health care due to a disability, the person providing that personal or health care may be required to obtain an enhanced DBS check and such a check should be undertaken if the activity constitutes regulated activity relating to children.

At their discretion, the provider may also choose to ask a line manager or supervisor to undergo a basic DBS check if they feel this is necessary, in situations such as where the student may be vulnerable or where the placement has a residential component. This is not a legal requirement but can be requested at the discretion of the provider.

■ Will there be amendments made to the DBS guidelines? Our students have only needed a volunteer DBS but due to guidelines which state if it is part of the course a full disclosure is needed, after speaking to DBS they said it’s the employer's discretion but due to the guidelines the employer insisted on full disclosure.

Information can be found in the CDF Guidance, and we recommend providers familiarise themselves with the HSE guidelines. We would not usually expect a student to need a full DBS check unless this is deemed necessary by the employer.

In arranging industry placements, we would also not ordinarily expect providers to DBS check the employer or their employees, since this is unnecessarily onerous in terms of employers willing to offer industry placements and for institutions to administer this.

What is counted as a placement or contributing to a placement?

■ WP in the holidays do not count for 315 hrs?

We recognise that some industries peak-season may run over the holiday periods, and as such, hours completed within the holidays can count towards the minimum 315 hour requirement. We have not been prescriptive about how or when industry placements are planned during the academic year, although students will need to be work ready and have developed enough skills in the classroom beforehand to be able to add value on the industry placement. The timing is to be agreed between the employer, the provider and the student.

Note: In order for the industry placements you deliver this year to count towards your 10% target for the academic year 2018 to 2019, the hours must be completed between the 1 August 2018 and 31 July 2019. Please ensure you complete the data required on the ILR and school census to meet the final return. More guidance about recording industry placements on the ILR and school census is provided on the CDF factsheet.

■ Would like to clarify your viewpoint on external projects can student work on those on the college site, if the work provided is from an external company? Thinking of jobs within the creative and digital sectors, as this mimics freelance work.

The industry placement must take place with an external employer, in an environment away from the ‘safety net’ of the provider’s campus. This is the only way that a student will gain real life experience of work and the pressures that come with it, including commuting, independence from their peers and college staff, working with new people and potentially dealing with the public.

From the 19/20 academic year students can undertake a Digital placement that develops their skills at the route-level as opposed to those only relevant to their specific specialism. This should increase the number of Digital placements available to students.

■ If learners do for example 35 (or whatever figure, just the fact that they have completed some of the placement) out of the 45 days because of unforeseen circumstances, can we still count these towards our achieved target numbers?

The minimum number of days we expect an industry placement to be with an external employer is 45 days (or 315 hours). This is to ensure providers are building capacity to offer placements of this length ready for the implementation of T Levels.

We recognise that some students are going to have to withdraw from their placement due to factors not within the students’ control, such as family bereavement, change in personal circumstances etc. and we are currently thinking about these extenuating circumstances as part of the Industry Placement Quality Assurance Framework due to be published next year. We will test this framework with both providers and employers before publishing.

■ "From 2019 to 2020 AY if providers arrange industry placements for students studying AGQs that have not been used to calculate the CDF allocation, to help build their capacity in other curriculum areas/industries, this will count towards the 20% delivery target." Does that mean we can use now the placements from early years, for example, which were not allowed previously?

The overall aim of CDF is to build new capacity to deliver industry placements and not to double fund existing provision. Where hours are currently spent on work experience, that is an existing and compulsory requirement for a qualification and already part of a study programme, these cannot be counted towards the industry placement hours delivered through CDF. This is because providers are already being government funded for these through mainstream funding. An example of this is childcare qualifications. If you wish to include a CDF industry placement on top of the existing requirements then you would need to arrange the required industry placement hours (minimum of 315) on top of the existing work experience hours that are recorded as planned ‘qualification hours’ on the ILR and school census.

■ Can students use their part time work hours to support their placement- when it is a relevant, industry related placement? It was written in the Challenge paper work that we could, but I can't find any further information to support this.

Yes. If a student has existing part-time employment in a directly relevant field and is directly developing the technical skills relevant to the course they are studying, this could be converted to a meaningful industry placement. However, there would need to be documented evidence from the employer that the student was carrying out the skills at level 2 or 3. In these cases, the industry placement principles must all apply: providers will need to agree with the employer the pre-defined learning aims; provider to carry out the same level of due diligence checks; and providers should visit the student regularly.

■ With regards to placements being set up, and is counted in or predicted numbers, if an employer pulls out thus preventing the learner from starting and completing those hours, how do we count this?

We would expect that students spend the whole of their industry placement with one employer. However, we recognise that there will be some instances where, the placement is not meeting its objectives or the student feels at risk. Whilst on placement, you as a provider have overall responsibility for the welfare of the students. If you have a situation where a placement is considered unsuitable and a student needs to be removed from a particular workplace setting, we would expect alternative arrangements to be made with another employer to ensure the student doesn’t miss out on this valuable experience.

In such circumstances the 45 days can be split across the two employers and the student will not be required to repeat learning objectives covered with the first employer. We will be asking you to keep a local record of placement breakdowns and the reasons for this (which should also include a record of the split days), so we can monitor the commonly cited issues around placement breakdown. We will also be asking for information relating to the reasons why placements have broken down in future monitoring forms.

■ If a learner was not able to attend 100% of the 45 days with external employer, would there be a minimum acceptable, let say 35/38 days?

The minimum number of days we expect an industry placement to be with an external employer is 45 days (or 315 hours). This is ensure providers are building capacity to offer placements of this length ready for the implementation of T Levels.

From the 2019/20 academic year, a single placement (315 hours minimum, 350 hours average) may now be split across a maximum of two employers where appropriate. Whilst we would still expect one employer to be used in the majority of cases, where two employers are involved we would expect a student to have a single set of learning objectives which they work towards during the time spent with both employers. This enables students to experience their specialism in a variety of circumstances, e.g. to understand how a large company operates compared to a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), and support SMEs with limited capacity to be able to offer placements.

■ What do you need to do, to "convert" part time work to Industry placement?

We would expect there to be documented evidence from the employer that the student was carrying out the skills at level 2 or 3, providers will need to agree with the employer the pre-defined learning aims; provider to carry out the same level of due diligence checks; and providers should visit the student regularly. Records should be kept and documented in the same way as any other industry placement.

■ If we have sourced the placement and the student hasn’t completed the full hours will we be penalised?

No, CDF providers will not be penalised if students have not been able to complete the full 315 industry placement hours (and the provider has not been able to meet the required 10% target), if the reason for non-completion was due to factors outside the control of the provider. In the June monitoring form we have asked for the reasons for students not completing their placement, so we will be monitoring this closely. From 2019/20, we have included a new withdrawal code: Industrial placement learner has withdrawn due to circumstances outside the providers’ control. We will be considering the funding implications of non-completion and other associated factors as part of the development of the T Level Industry Placement Quality Assurance Framework, due to be published next year.

Submitting information

■ When do the final figures have to be provided for this year?

The final industry placement figures (or as near to as possible) will need to be supplied in the June monitoring reports. We will be asking for industry placement ‘completes’ and those still in progress and expected to be completed by 31 July 2019.

■ The next monitoring form is due on 1st June. Will there be any further info required after 31st July to check how many students actually completed?

Yes, the June monitoring form will be the last opportunity to report progress on this year’s activities. We will however be cross checking the data supplied in the ILR and school census to verify the final figures. Please ensure that your ILR records are up to date for the RO10 ILR return (ILR users only).

■ Do you know if we will need to submit any info after the next monitoring form?

The June monitoring form will be the last opportunity to report progress on this year’s activities. We will however be cross checking the data supplied in the ILR and school census to verify the final figures. Please ensure that your ILR records are up to date for the RO10 ILR return (ILR users only).

Info on overcoming barriers

■ How did providers use CDF for overcoming employer barriers?

An evaluation of the CDF will be published after this academic year. For further information of the Pilot that was ran in the 2017/18 academic year, and information of how providers and employers implemented industry placements, please refer to the Evaluation report.

■ Industry placements in creative areas (media, music, A&D and Performing Arts). They have a real issue obtaining them, has anyone managed to do this and if so how?

An evaluation of the CDF will be published after this academic year. Further information of how Creative and Digital placements were sourced and implemented during the industry placement Pilot can be found within the Route reports.

Funding

■ Industry placements in creative areas (media, music, A&D and Performing Arts) How long is the funding guaranteed for? We want to recruit staff but do not want to keep issuing fixed term contracts.

We expect that providers will need to continue to build capacity beyond 2019/20 in preparation for offering T Level provision and we are considering the continuation of CDF from 2020 as part of our preparation for the spending review. We will provide a further communication about CDF from 2020 in July 2019, although this will be subject to the spending review.

■ Following recent communication from DfE, will it be possible to use the already funded placements (like early years) for the CDF allocations?

General

■ Will the 45 days’ change for next year?

Placements are now to be formally recorded in hours (315 hours as a minimum), as opposed to 45 days. This will reflect differing industry practices, and will also enable shorter days for students with SEND, part-time work or other commitments while ensuring that they receive the same benefits from placements as those who are able to work longer hours. The minimum requirement for next year will still be 315 hours.

Please note that while the minimum requirement is set at 315 hours (excluding 1 hour for lunch, per day) our expectation is that placements will typically be on average 350 hours in length and in accordance with the normal full-time working pattern of the employer (which would typically consist of 7 hours a day).

NAS

■ Who should we contact at NAS as we have heard nothing from them?

NAS are only contacting providers if there are employers with current industry placement vacancies available, operating in their area.

NAS can be contacted on 08000 150 600, or if you have already been contacted via an employer referral, the email should provide you with a contact email address to provide feedback.

■ By now, should providers have been contacted now by a NAS lead to help source placements?

Yes, as placements for the 2018/19 academic year should be happening now or coming to a close. NAS have all details of providers and their locations. If a provider has not yet been contacted, it’s likely that there are no employers with current industry placement vacancies operating in their area. NAS will be collecting details for the purposes of collecting sourcing placements for the 2019/20 academic year.

Other

■ Is it realistic when stating that training providers will work together when we are all, in reality, in competition?!

We recognise providers’ experience of delivering work placements of this nature varies considerably. Smaller and/or less experienced providers may encounter various challenges when building their industry placement offer from scratch. We would expect that leading providers who are actively delivering industry placements will share their local knowledge and expertise (including good practice and materials/tools).

We also recommend that smaller providers collaborate with other neighboring or similar providers for economies of scale, by being open to pooling resources, for example, hiring a cross-site work placement coordinator and/or sharing the operational responsibilities. It is important that neighboring providers work together and in partnership with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Chambers of Commerce and/or other local employer representatives, to develop a coordinated local employer engagement strategy.

■ Can something be set up so that we can all communicate together.... best practice could be shared.... some areas people are struggling in we have done well in

We recognise that communication between providers is beneficial to share best practice and learning. We welcome and support this taking place across providers, and encourage this across our existing networks.

■ Will the DfE look at insurance premiums for under 18s in the workplace it is proving a big barrier?

Bycomplying with the health and safety legislation and maintaining adequate and up-to-date Employer’s Liability and Public Liability insurance you will be covered for any potential loss or liability caused by or to the learner in relation to the placement. We are working with the T Level Panels to explore industry specific needs and issues including insurance premiums, and publish any change prior to the roll-out of T Levels.

■ Can we ask what evidence will be asked for from MI?

IES will be analysing the Monitoring Information sheets that the Department is asking you to complete, they will not ask for supplementary data. They will analyse the data collectively and will report the findings anonymously – no providers will be identified in the reporting. Based on the data already returned, they will be able to report on: progress towards delivering targets; expenditure as a proportion of funding; descriptive coding of qualitative responses on how CDF and the additional 16-19 discretionary bursary fund have been spent; track confidence in progression ratings over time; employer engagement.