Support for industry placement mentors

7. Preparing for placements


Mentoring is quite a pliable concept. It works differently in particular contexts and situations. Industry placements provide a context with some parameters which you should know about, like what the placement is for and how long it lasts. Even so there’s plenty of flexibility for how organisations set them up and the approach mentors can take in different situations.

This module covers

What industry placements are
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Mentoring in industry placements
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Placement models
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Mentoring agreements
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Preparing for placement stages

What are industry placements?

Industry placements are high quality, structured experiences of real work. Students on T-levels – two-year full-time technical education programmes – must complete an industry placement. Placements last a minimum of 315 hours, long enough for students to develop real work skills and make a meaningful contribution to your organisation.

Placements give students a chance to:

  • Learn new skills and use them at work
  • Make a genuine contribution to the organisation in which they are doing the placement
  • Gain practical experience of what they're learning on their course
I didn’t always understand the subject in college but now I can actually see it live on site I then go back to college and get it fully. The experience is making my work better. It’s absolutely amazing!

Mentoring in industry placements

Mentors have the working knowledge and breadth of experience to provide another dimension to students’ learning. They provide a sounding board for ideas and bring a different perspective to the challenges students face. Mentors can help students link their learning goals to the reality of work and show the opportunities open to them in future.

A good mentor can add a great deal to the experience of students while they’re on placement by:

  • Helping students with their role and responsibilities at work
  • Providing additional support and advice on wider issues
  • Developing students’ confidence and self-development capabilities
  • Reviewing challenges and identifying potential resources or support
  • Helping to develop career progression ideas and opportunities

Mentors aren’t alone in providing support. Students are also supported on their placements by:

  • A supervisor or line manager – who makes sure that students are fully inducted into the workplace, checks that they can carry out their role in a safe environment and directs their day to day tasks in line with agreed learning goals
  • A contact from the college, school or other provider – who plans the learning goals to be achieved during the placement (together with the student’s line manager), reviews progress, helps students to integrate the experience of being at work with their learning, and evaluates the success of the overall experience

“The college has a fully focused team of job coaches working in an integrated way with the academic areas, students and employers. It is working really well and is getting positive feedback from everyone involved.”
Head of Department at a specialist college, responsible for industry placements

Consider

Who’s who in the industry placements you’re involved in?

Here are some ideas

The people involved

Here’s an example showing the people involved in industry placements in an NHS Foundation Trust:

  • The Trust's Learning and Development Manager – designed an application process to find out about students so they could be matched to the most relevant department
  • Department Heads within the Trust – came up with a whole set of activities which placement students would be able to carry out, including patient care and infection control
  • Mentors (‘buddies’) for each student – helped with the project which each student carried out as part of their placement
  • Single point of contact from each college, school or other provider involved – to create a clear chain of control, improve communication and minimise disruption

 

Placement models

There are three main ways to organise placements. The table below lists each model and describes the kind of mentoring support needed in each case.

 

Model Overview What kind of mentoring support is needed?

Day release

One or two days per week on industry placement over 1–2 years.

Consistent support is needed to help students stay on task during their weekly visits. An hour or two every month should keep the momentum going and tackle any problems before they get too big.

Block release

An intensive block of time when the student is on placement e.g. six weeks in year one and another six weeks in the second year.

Consolidated support is needed to help students stay on track with their learning goals. Mentoring sessions every week or more often should help students apply themselves fully in the short time periods they are with you.

Mixed

A mixture of the two e.g. day release for six months in year one followed by an intensive period of placement in Year 2.

Flexible support is needed to help students keep up their motivation levels and enable them to apply their knowledge and skills when they come back to the placement after a gap.

Bear in mind that placements can be split between two employers, as long as they reach the minimum 315 hours in total. 

Reflect

The key to a good placement model is how well it fits with the way your organisation works. You may have a role in deciding this. Either way, can you see the different opportunities each placement arrangement might present for a mentoring relationship?

Here are some ideas

Here’s how an NHS Trust used a mixed model to organise placements for ten students in its corporate services department. Following the results of a smaller pilot the previous year, students started their new placements with a full week, followed by two consecutive days each week.

Reasons the model worked well:

  • The full week at the start gave enough time for a full induction, during which students got to know the workplace environment and planned their activities
  • Students were able to focus on more complex activities in the two days than if they had only been there for one day a week
  • Because the placements lasted six months, students were able to carry out longer-term projects than would be possible in a more intensive block release model

The structure of the placements worked well for our environment. It was fundamental to factor this in at the early stages. The fact that students were with us for a period of time allowed them to self-reflect on their progress and learning in the employment setting

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust 

Mentoring agreements

Mentoring is all about building a trusting relationship. There needn’t be many hard and fast rules, but it’s good to discuss a few basics with students so you arrive at an agreed way of working together. 

The agreement (which could be written down) may cover some or all of these:

  • Timeframe – how often, where and for how long you’ll meet
  • Communication – when and how to get in touch with each other between mentoring sessions
  • Roles and responsibilities – including the specific aims and expectation each of you brings to the relationship
  • Confidentiality – agreement about what needs to be kept confidential in your discussions
  • Boundaries – in terms of your roles, communication, acceptable content of meetings, etc.
  • Review and evaluation – ongoing and summative reviews of progress and any changes you agree would have been beneficial
  • Ending the relationship if it isn’t working – what actions you both take, the ‘no blame’ approach and the options for gaining a new mentor if needed

Occasionally, the mentoring may have broken down. If this situation occurs you should have an honest conversation and suggest their line manager finds an alternative mentor. It is vital however not to impart blame on either side

Wellcome Sanger Institute, Mentor Guidebook 

Preparing for placement stages

It’s useful to have an idea in your mind of what’s involved in mentoring students during the different stages of the placement from start to end. Here are some pointers.

 

Industry placement stage What you could do as a mentor

 

Before the placement starts

 
  • Check that your mentoring skills are up to date and you feel confident in your role and responsibilities – these resources and the further reading should be a good place to start
  • Work with the student’s supervisor or line manager to plan interesting and useful work activities or projects
  • Consider how the student will gain a breadth of skills by doing different tasks

 

Week 1 and induction

 
  • Make time to support the student’s induction and orientation
  • Get to know the student – their background, goals, worries, knowledge and skill levels
  • Help them to start thinking about the knowledge, skills and experience they want to gain
  • Plan regular check-in times to build the relationship and help the student settle in

 

Throughout the placement

 
  • Help the student to reflect on their development and learning goals
  • Help the student to get to know other people at work and understand the workplace culture
  • Make sure they have enough variety of tasks available to stay motivated
  • Provide constructive feedback to help the student assimilate their learning and set further challenging targets
  • Liaise with the college, school or other provider contact and contribute to progress reviews

At the end of the placement
  • Reflect on learning and progress during the whole placement
  • Encourage the student to consider their future goals and action plan
  • Evaluate the mentoring relationship itself
  • Contribute to the final placement report
 

Summary

During this section you have covered the following topics:

What industry placements are
—
Mentoring in industry placements
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Placement models
—
Mentoring agreements
—
Preparing for placement stages

Complete your action plan to put your learning into practice:

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Section 7: Preparing for placements

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Further reading

T-level employer support package:

Which industry placement models could work for you?
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Are we ready to offer industry placements?
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Planning industry placements projects and tasks
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Planning the content of an industry placement
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Final preparations checklist

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