Anyone else teaching on a PSRB course and wondering how current students will manage stresses of the job?

[outyoctober]

As academic staff we are increasingly being asked to support students in multiple ways that take into account their individual needs. I was wondering if anyone else teaches on a PSRB course where this tensions with the skills students need to develop to effectively do the career that the qualification leads to?

We regularly receive Support Plans from the Student Services team for students that ask us to adapt to these specific needs. Of course, it is absolutely important to support students in ways that will help their learning. However, I'm becoming increasingly concerned that we are not preparing them for their chosen career. To give an example, we are being asked not to require particular students to give presentations as an assessment as they experience high levels of anxiety in doing this. But these very students are on a PSRB programme leading to a qualification that requires them to stand up and give evidence in court - which of course is why we use presentations as a way of developing these skills in the first place. Other individual Support Plans make reference to how particular students experience difficulty in hearing other students' views that are different from their own views or that they find some topics triggering and they might suddenly have to leave the class. These students are on a social care course which ultimately will lead to a career in which disparate and often conflictual views will be expressed and/or it would not be uncommon that they will come across unsettling incidents or topics.

In principle, I have no objection to bring sensitive but I am concerned that in doing so, we are not preparing students with the necessary skills to cope in their chosen career.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I used to and you are not wrong! I did frequently wonder how on Earth some of the students would actually cope with an actual job where it just isn't possible to make the same accommodations.

I don't have so many PSRB track students now (but do still have some) but I still think this quite frequently. It's a very difficult line (nudge to try something vs play safe). I also tend to get very generic support plans with no indication of the precise underlying difficulty so especially hard to know what on the laundry list of accommodations is really relevant (it's a VERY long list...).

My interactions with students recently has made me wonder the same.

I organise a mandatory clinical experience day.

I've recently been told that I was unprofessional for raising non-attendance and late attendance with students. The students complained about me to the course organiser and verbally discussed within hearing of one of my colleagues referring me to my professional regulator.

They then fed back to the course organiser that they felt it was inappropriate for me to be raising this and that no aspects of the course should be deemed mandatory as they were " adult learners" and able to choose which aspects of the course to attend based solely on the descriptors in the course handbook.

I'm not quite sure how turning up four hours late to work, or not at all is going to go down in their future professional careers.

Practice assessor here. My ma students don't seem to have this going on but the undergrads do.
I won't go into what's gone on with students but I have spoken to my own children about not making a fuss about presentations and or other kinds of speaking in front of a group. When I was an undergrad there was no other option they wouldn't let you off doing it.

Kind of makes me wonder what the student support and or mental health support staff actually do because anxiety isn't an intractable condition. And I say this as a sufferer at times of severe anxiety.

I think you teach the same subject as me. We decline requests for adjustments that are incompatible with the skills and capabilities required upon qualification as they are not reasonable. The adjustment might be that the student has support to develop presentation skills / tolerate their anxiety about this but ultimately, as you say, they need to have these skills upon qualification.

Similarly, attendance is mandatory to meet PSRB requirements. Significant lateness = non-attendance. This is not negotiable and if the student is too unwell to meet the attendance requirement, they need an Occupational Health assessment to determine whether they are 'fit' to study.

I teach solely on PSRB programmes and agree with all the PP points. I'm increasingly sceptical about how my students will cope on registration once all the support they are allowed in a university setting is removed.

However, once they are registered they can tailor jobs/roles much more to their needs - they're earning money, can choose the setting and distance to travel and can work part time or flexibly. It's much easier to cope once the stressors of undergraduate and pre-professional requirements are finished?

This worries me because DS has a significant physical disability. He will need adjustments at uni and at work. But he works hard and is aiming for a very competitive course. He has adjustments in school and for exams but they are forever pushing dropping elements and limiting timetable which isn’t what he needs. He needs rest breaks but these can be accommodated in the normal day and by getting dropped off and picked up (for example). Anyway there’s seems to be a tick box exercise, you can’t have X without Y and Z (Y and Z being, removing elements and limiting testing). I can so easily see employers assuming any adjustment means got through will less work and lower marks.

No. I teach apprentices. They are much more on it. One recounted to me last week that she was working with an 18 year old who asked her which was left and which side was right!

Yes. We have to manage quite a lot of this. We have just pushed back on completely unrealistic requests from inclusivity department. Some of the students are effectively taking themselves down the path of being considered unsuitable for the profession. I think it doesn't help when the University tries to take a 'one size fits all' approach to their courses

Yes. Students who have a support plan saying they have regular meltdowns, etc, who may need to leave and if that happens not to talk to them while they calm down. But they can’t do that in placement or when qualified. I’m hoping it’s a worst case scenario thing and doesn’t actually happen irl.

The problem is there was the sad case of the student from Bristol or Bath who killed herself after being told she had to do the presentation to pass the module. Her parents wanted the lecturer prosecuted iirc. Universities are twitched.

Doing the course and using the qualification that enables the career are two VERY different things. My assumption is these students may get the qualification but they’ll either do something else altogether or a lower level role initially while they build their confidence and resilience along with their maturity.

I mentor student nurses, and have the exact same concerns. Some students just won't cope when let loose on the wards.

The problem there is university senior leadership not being absolutely clear that skills like presentations presenting an argument orally to an audience and discussing and debating ideas with others are part of what students are at university to learn. Senior management are often worse than useless.

Universities should have pushed back years ago against moves to try to make them responsible for filling the huge gaps in NHS mental health services. And taken steps to address student funding mechanisms so that students are able to take time out when they are not well enough to study. But they didn’t.

And the whole thing is a mess that isn’t serving anyone well.

At no point should student services ever be saying that a student has an adjustment to protect them from exposure to ideas or arguments they disagree with. If a student is not able to listen respectfully to other students’ ideas… they should not be on a university course (until they’ve developed the strategies to cope with the basic reality of other people - no matter what the discipline - having views you don’t share).

It's not helped by the fact that Student Services complete a template Student Support Plan and that these are seemingly generically applied to all programmes - PSRB or not. I don't think they actually understand that professional programmes are limited in what adjustments they can make as the knowledge and skills needing to be gained for that career aren't really negotiable. It would be like saying to a medical student who couldn't stand the sight of blood, 'ahh, no worries. Here's your qualification anyway'.

Yes. It is not good that student services aren’t actually taking the content and purpose of the course into consideration.