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Your Placement Journey Toolkit is designed to support you to get the best from your placement experience. It will help you to think about your placement, looking at your expectations, recognising your own responsibilities alongside those of your university and placement provider.

Aligned with the Engineering Placements Toolkit, designed for education institutions and employers, this toolkit aims to support your placement experience in three key stages: before, during and after placement.

Your placement provides you with new learning experiences, knowledge, and skills that will be assessed by your university and valued by future employers.

Top Tips

Keep in touch with the people you’ve met and worked with.
Update your CV. Be proactive and engage with your Careers Service or Professional Institution for support.
Share your experience with the next generation of students.
Build your language skills. In the global market, knowing more than one language can be a plus.

Assessment

On completion of your placement, ensure that you have submitted all the documents and reports on the due date.

Evaluate the placement itself and prepare for meeting with your personal tutor and placement coordinator.

Reflect and evaluate your achievements

Look at what you’ve enjoyed the most and benefited from during your placement experience.

How do you assess your skills development? Reflect on what you have achieved and the skills you have acquired to enable this.

Reflect on what have you enjoyed the most, what have you and least, and why.

Your future plans

Write your CV, and give specific examples based on the experience you acquired during your placement.

Contact your Careers Service for individual advise on your future plans.

Think about professional registration

Once you have achieved the necessary qualifications and workplace experience you should apply to your institution to become professionally registered. Your institution will guide you through the registration process and help you to decide when you’re ready to apply.

Read more on the Engineering Council website.

As you prepare to enter the world of work, it’s critical to align your skills and experience with the needs of the businesses which will look to employ you. Many employers made it plain that undergraduates achieving professional registration as an Engineering Technician (EngTech) and / or ICT Technician (ICTTech) on completion of their year in industry will have a distinct advantage when it comes to finding employment upon graduation.

Read more about the technician professional registration for students on The Institute of Engineering and Technology website.

Share your experience with fellow students

Share your thoughts and experience with your Career Services and fellow students at your university. You can also have a wider impact contacting organisms such as the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) and their dedicated programmes such as My Placement Experience.

Read more

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

During your placement you have the responsibility to get the most of your experience. Be proactive in seeking out experiences for your level of practice and skills with the support of your placement supervisor at the company.

How can I get the most of my placement?

Communication

Communication is key. Demonstrate your willingness to work as part of the team and adopt a reflective approach to your learning. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask for feedback as much as possible.

Reflective skills

Also, reflect on your progress. Writing a log book and or/diary will help you not only to track and gather evidence of your learning, but also to increase your self-awareness and confidence.

Continuous development

Look out for learning opportunities in your company that were not initially expected to occur in your placement. Also, utilize learning opportunities outside the placement. Have you ever thought about learning a new language, or develop your business skills? Employers value your ability to learn new things inside and outside your field of study. Have a look at your university’s free courses or explore online resources such as:

Coursera
Edx

Develop your professional network

Engage with your colleagues, be part of the team and be open to new learning experiences. Work in as many projects as possible, even if not directly related with your placement learning outcomes. You might enjoy things that you were not initially considering to do. Many students were offered jobs after their placements because of their engagement with the company.

How will I be assessed?

Make sure you know the criteria in advance. What is expected from you? Know your learning outcomes, learning tasks and assessment which you should agree with both your academic and your placement supervisors.

I am struggling with my placement. What can I do?

Seek guidance and support from your placement supervisor to enable you to achieve your learning outcomes.

If the relationship with your placement placement supervisor is not working for any reason, seek help from your university’s academic supervisor.

Work-life balance

Your placement can be a bit daunting in the beginning. You may feel that is all about work and getting yourself stuck in. However, it’s also important to have a good work-life balance.

Top Tips

Be proactive. Use your placement as an opportunity to develop your professional network. Create a LinkedIn profile.
Appreciate that your supervisors have other responsibilities besides you. Be clear, professional and flexible in your dealings with them.
Arrange meetings proactively with your supervisors, ensure you have a clear agenda and keep your appointments.
Don´t forget to enjoy your life outside placement.

Read more

The Engineering Placements Toolkit is designed to support higher education institutions and employers to enhance the experience and the value of students’ placements. Aligned with the Your Placement Journey Toolkit, designed for students, this toolkit aims to support the placement experience in three key stages: before, during and after placement.

Universities

Careers Service

Support students in writing up CV’s based on their recently acquired experience, knowledge and skills
Collect case studies and disseminate best practices

University Departments

Keep in contact with employers
- Invite key links to become part of the Advisory Board

Employers

Write an exit reference at the end of the placement
Consider continuing engagement with the university:
- offering placements for next years
- becoming part of the Advisory Board
- contributing to curriculum design
- support employers in implementing future placements

Joint actions

Get feedback from the student at the end of the placement

Provide a final assessment record

Identify benefits and costs

Read more

The Engineering Placements Toolkit is designed to support higher education institutions and employers to enhance the experience and the value of students’ placements. Aligned with the Your Placement Journey toolkit, designed for students, this toolkit aims to support the placement experience in three key stages: before, during and after placement.

Universities

Academic supervisor

Ensure ongoing support and visits to the student at the placement site
Be available to meet face-to-face, by email or phone, accordint to the pre-placement agreement
Monitor student progress and attainment of learning outcomes. This is particularly relevant if the placement is credited by the university.

University facilities

Provide pastoral care for students
Consider implementing a peer mentor scheme, as appropriate

Employers

Placement supervisor

Try to give your student a set of activities that are valuable to the company, fit with the curriculum and are related with the degree
Ensure that your student is given the opportunity to present their work to a small audience from various areas of the business
Allow the student to explore different areas of the company and engage with different projects
Identify learning and training opportunities that are available in the company and encourage students to participate
Treat the student as regular staff, in the context of the placement experience

Joint actions

Provide regular and constructive feedback

Monitor student progress and attainment of learning outcomes

Provide time for reflection, regular and constructive feedback. Give suggestions on how to make further improvements

Set clear milestones and reviewing points with both the student, their academic supervisor and their placement supervisor

Read more

Degree Apprenticeships Toolkit

Case study: Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, University of Sheffield

The University of Sheffield has been an early entrant to this new form of higher learning.

Its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – AMRC with Boeing (which specialises in the research and development of better manufacturing processes and more efficient factory optimisation) has excellent relationships with businesses – both large multinationals (typified by Boeing) and also local SMEs. It has been delivering research and taught masters degrees since its inception almost two decades ago. For the past three years, the AMRC as part of the University of Sheffield has provided advanced and higher apprentice training, with an annual intake of 205 apprentices. Having identified a gap in manufacturing education at degree level, it has been able to take advantage of the government initiatives and funding around degree apprenticeships to develop its offer.

With a Further Education college partner, locally, the AMRC Training Centre already offered a Foundation degree and higher apprenticeship, but is now recruiting to the first year of its new Bachelors in Manufacturing programmes (BMan), designed to provide degree level apprenticeships in Manufacturing. The BMan programme will run via day release over three years. By teaching over 36 weeks a year, on one (long) day a week, and using a flipped classroom/blended learning approach, the curriculum has been designed to deliver graduates of the standard that employers are expecting. Students will be able to study for a foundation degree in two years, a bachelor’s degree in three years or to master’s level over four years.

The employers say that the key benefits are that as well as being better engaged and loyal,

the students understand industry;
they know how to make things;
they have manufacturing skills;
they have an established work ethic.

In addition, they will have access to experts from the university and AMRC to support student projects and the apprentice levy and government support improves the financial viability, even for small companies.

From the students’ perspective, they get paid while they study, ‘earn while they learn’ and apply their academic learning in their own workplace through project work in their companies. The blended learning approach means that they will be able to do much of the learning in their own time, meaning that the time they spend in at university will focus on problem classes, laboratories and tutorials.

The university sees it as a flagship activity with a number of key advantages:

It enables the university to cover the full post-16 to PhD spectrum of education in manufacturing, with industry engagement at every stage;
It enables the university to apply its standards and educational experience to widen the number and diversity of people studying engineering.
It allows the university to better engage with the region, its local manufacturing base and the rest of the world to provide an additional pipeline of well-qualified, graduate engineers.

With thanks to Professor Stephen Beck, Head of Multidisciplinary Engineering Education, University of Sheffield.

Degree Apprenticeships Toolkit

Degree Apprentices must be employed for a minimum of 30 hours per week and must have the right to live and work in the UK. A Degree Apprentice cannot be self-employed and must be:

a new recruit or an existing employee where an employer intends to support the individual complete the apprenticeship;
employed in a real job and the employer must pay a wage/salary and financially contribute to the cost of training and accrediting the apprentice.

An employer must enter into an Apprenticeship Agreement when taking on a Degree Apprentice at the start of the Apprenticeship. If the student leaves or otherwise loses their job (eg because of misconduct or redundancy) then the employer would normally be held liable for the full course fees.

A proforma agreement can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/take-on-an-apprentice/apprenticeship-agreement

A national certification system operates for Apprenticeship. It is currently a legal requirement that this is followed. This is a simple process and more information can be found at Apprenticeship Certificates in England (ACE).

https://acecerts.co.uk/web/

National Minimum Wage rates

Degree Apprenticeships Toolkit

It is important to recognise that a successful degree apprenticeship programme has to be founded on a strong and real partnership between an employer (or group of employers) and a provider (or group of providers). The following are normally essential elements that need to be in place to underpin this, before starting significant development:

A clear statement of intent and purpose agreed by all parties;
A programme structure that suits all parties;
A clear delineation of where responsibilities and accountabilities lie;
A clear statement of deliverables and which of the parties is to deliver.

There are also some key deliverables or structural demands that have to be addressed as follows:

Innovation in teaching and learning methodologies: because much of the content is employer and employment driven, and because this is following a statutory scheme of award, the work is to be structured so that the effectiveness of the teaching and learning content remains sharp and focused and is fully evaluated at every stage. There is scope here for producing teaching and learning papers and presentations to inform both the next stages in this development, and also to inform a much wider range of teaching and learning development.

Leadership and entrepreneurship opportunities in the curriculum: this is demanded by the nature and content of the programme. Students will be educated to be leaders and pioneers.

Skills development for future employment: the candidates are already in employment and their continued employment is dependent on their engagement and delivery of the work and other obligations and responsibilities as undergraduate students on this programme.

Degree Apprenticeships Toolkit

There have been recent reports that graduate recruitment will flatten off and apprenticeship recruitment will increase by 23 per cent. Reports from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) agree. They are currently meeting large employers and finding significant interest in apprenticeships at all levels.

Government guidance states that there are currently around 1,000 degree apprenticeships. Government has made a pledge to increase the number of apprenticeships starts to 3 million by 2020 and to support this aim they are helping higher education providers develop and deliver degree apprenticeships. A degree apprenticeship is a real job where the employer invests in training and the employee receives a first degree during the course of the apprenticeship. Apprentices work for 30 hours a week. Learning fits around that work commitment and requires flexible learning modes like day or block release, distance or blended learning. Overall these programmes provide the opportunity for HEIs to open up to a much wider and newer audience and to introduce and instil HE’s values, attitudes and expertise to a whole cohort that would not otherwise be accessed. It also enables HEIs to develop new relationships and collaborations with organisations and companies.

With the expected introduction of the “Apprenticeship Levy” on all large employers in the near future, there is now a huge financial incentive for employers to engage with these programmes – potentially as alternatives to traditional models of Higher Education, in order to recover their mandatory contribution to the Apprenticeship Levy, with this funding only being eligible to spend on apprenticeship programmes approved under the new standards.

Degree Apprenticeships Toolkit

Higher apprenticeships refer to all apprenticeships which include the achievement of academic and vocational qualifications and learning from level 4 up to bachelor’s and master’s degrees at levels 6 and 7 respectively.

All levels can include vocational qualifications and academic qualifications. Degree Apprenticeships are the latest model to be developed as part of higher apprenticeship standards, seeing apprentices achieving a full bachelor’s or master’s degree as a core component of the apprenticeship. Degree apprenticeships combine both higher and vocational education and fully test both the wider occupational competence and academic learning, either:

using a fully-integrated degree co-designed by employers and HEIs, or
using a degree plus separate end-test of professional competence.

The figure below (adapted from the Skills Funding Agency fact sheet, June 2015) sets out how higher and degree apprenticeships link together.

Put another way, a Degree Apprenticeship involves an individual being awarded a bachelor’s or master’s degree as part of their Apprenticeship. An Apprenticeship where an individual achieves a foundation degree as part of their Apprenticeship is a Higher Apprenticeship not a Degree Apprenticeship. Degree Apprenticeships are not available at level 8.

Universities

Ensure Health and Safety procedures in the placement
Give effective support in identifying placement possibilities, combining students and employers’ expectations.
Help students in writing up CVs and cover letters
Prepare students for interviews (e.g. mock interviews)
Assign an academic supervisor to support and visit the student during their placement, and act as key contact link with the company
Ensure Health and Safety

Employers

Set clear guidelines and criteria for selecting a student – knowledge and skills
Assign a placement supervisor to support and guide the student during their placement, and act as a key contact link with the university.
Plan and deliver an Induction programme/pre-placement, so that student feels like part of the team. Suggested issues to address:
- Health and Safety
- Professional skills and conduct (dress code, culture of the company)
- Management expectations
- Visits to different departments of the company, so the student appreciates quickly how it all fits together

Joint actions

Organise a joint meeting to agree milestones and methods of supervision and assessment. The combined assessment criteria could be organised according to the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC). The UK-SPEC “sets out the competence and commitment required for registration as an Engineering Technician (EngTech), Incorporated Engineer (IEng) or Chartered Engineer (CEng). It also includes examples of activities that demonstrate the required competence and commitment”

Suggestion: consider using mycareerpath – an online professional development system, designed by the Engineering Council and adopted by many professional engineering institutions for use by their members. The system is aligned with the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC) for EngTech, IEng, and CEng. The system is also aligned with other titles such as CPhys, CEnv, and CSci, to provide one platform to suit all. Progress can be measured and tracked against the competence statements for the chosen registration category.

Organise a joint meeting with the student, agree overall objectives and set expectations

Sign an agreement between the student, university and employer. The suggested topics below could be considered, if applicable:

Project title

Working hours (flexible or non flexible work arrangements)

Salary

Holiday entitlement

Expected dress code

Student’s roles and responsibilities

University’s roles and responsibilities – academic supervisor

Employer’s roles and responsibilities – placement supervisor

Schedule for academic visits and other meetings

Assessment criteria

Activities and resources are covered by university’s fees

Read more

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