Work experience sh*t show

[Dwellernf]

DD17 is starting her 2 week college industry placement today. Level 3 extended diploma in equine studies. Students had to find an industry related placement and give all relevant info...placement address, contact details etc to the college by January. No problem. DD knew the yard she was going to, all arranged. Due to the easter holidays, students were given the option of doing it during the holidays, or the 2 weeks following. A few have already done their placement, or a few days of it. Good Friday we went to the yard to finalise days, hours etc. We had arranged it with the yard manager that DD would be doing these 2 weeks, as it allowed a member of staff to go on leave and DD would be the replacement. Yard manager was off over the Easter weekend and would see DD Tuesday. Good Friday pm... email from the college to say that due to the college not completing the necessary checks DD would not be able to do her placement at her chosen yard, and would instead have to chose from a short list of places that the college had managed to vet. The closest venue to us being 25 miles away! According to DD's group chat this was affecting 9 out of the 17 students, and 3 of them had already completed/started their days. These were now not valid, and they will have to re do them, at a different place!! We were told we had the Easter weekend to sort out the new placements!!! I managed to get hold of the course leader, and was told it wasn't HER fault, and the placement team had failed to get the relevant insurance docs. I explained that the yard DD was going to have full insurance and I can get them to send the docs on Tuesday when yard manager returns to work. No. It had to be in place before DD starts. The yard is a registered charity, in which one of DD's course lecturers is a trustee, as well as the charity's head instructor. She could verify all is in order. No. Still wont be done in time. The yard also run major show jumping and dressage competitions at the college equestrian centre. They would have the insurance copy? No! The events team is a different dept and we cant possibly 'cross departments'!!! I then told her that as course leader it was her fault as she should have made sure all this was in place for her students before the easter break, knowing they would all be going straight into it. She said it wasn't her job. I told her DD would be starting at her chosen yard on Monday, as I wasn't going to let them down or be prepared to change my work schedule etc over the next 2 weeks to take DD to a placement miles away (no public transport... we are very rural) To which she said she will fail that part of her course as it's not a valid placement! AIBU to think the college have mucked up big time here, and it is the course leaders responsibility to make sure all students had their placements sorted and verified? And AIBU to still send DD to her chosen placement? And AIBU to want to make a complaint to the college about this, and make sure DD does not fail this part of her course. The college had since January to do all the checks...

Who is the college using to do their checks ? If it’s an external provider, I’d get on to them. It might be the yard has previously been checked (often it’s once every 3 years that these providers do), so if a new check is needed it might just be a phone call.

Whilst yards are high risk environments, if they’ve got ELI and PL , have previously hosted Wexp or normally employ young people, and if your DD won’t be lone working (ie 1:1 with an unsupervised adult for 3 or more days).

college can’t approve until they’ve satisfied their internal checks. But at worse that’s unauthorised absence until they’ve satisfied their check comes through.

I bet the poor course leader is either livid - if they’ve been let down - or mortified if it’s their mistake.

it’s bloody irritating but schools and colleges are legally required to “take reasonable steps” to satisfy themselves that their students are safe on Wexp. So if something did happen to a student, the school / college could find themselves in trouble. The problem is defining “reasonable” and it depends how risk aware SLT are - there’s no agreed consensus.

This

The college sounds completely incompetent.

I wouldn't be able to take DD to a placement 25 miles away, so that would be us fucked. I, like most others, have work obligations that I can't just change last minute and other children and my own animals. Doing a nearly hour long round trip twice a day would be impossible. DD would either fail for not being able to attend or fail for attending her arranged yard and actually getting the experience- I think I know which one I'd do. As it's entirely the fault of the college, I'd give them the options and tell them to get back to you when they've sorted it out. I'd also make a complaint to the college lead.

To be clear here. The yard IS insured. It is a registered charity working in equine therapy for disabled children. It is an RDA, BHS and fully licenced premises. They have worked closely with the college over the last couple of years, and have had full time placement students from the college on the yard. One of the trustees and instructors is also a college instructor. The issue is, despite all of this, the college placement team have it seems failed to get a copy of the insurance certificate, despite already having it on another students file! But it needs to be resent apparently. The placement team have also failed to go and inspect the yard. This has to be done for each student placement, even if done before. The big issue is... That we were given 2 days over easter and bh weekend to sort somewhere else or it's an automatic fail of that part of the course!!!

It is the college's own placement team. The yard has been checked before... they have had students in the past year there too. She has attended the yard today. Yard manager is sending relevant docs over tomorrow. If she fails this module we will then appeal.

I’d do exactly the same. Sounds like college has panicked and done blanket rule. Hope it works out as sounds like a super placement.

What a shit show indeed!

This is 100% the college’s fault & they’re being difficult now in finding a pragmatic solution. Given that 9 other students are impacted, it’s pretty obvious where the blame sits, and unfortunately it’s only your DC that suffers.

The question was should the OP still send the daughter this week to not let the yard down and sort the college side out later and posters jumper in with but they don't have insurance which firstly wasn't correct and secondly didnt need to be checked by the college for the daughter to go on her own decision

are the other affected students able to attend their new placements? Can everyone challenge the college as a group? Surely they can’t fail 9 students due to their own mistakes.

@Dwellernf this could be a good compromise.

edited because the stupid quote didn’t work and now I can’t delete so will have to find the one I was quoting, re-edit to mention the post. Sigh.

1 has already completed their hours, and is not going to re do. Apparently she has been offered a full time job at her placement after college! 2 have completed part of their hours and as far as I know are not going to go elsewhere. The others not too sure, but I know they are upset. This is industry related placements, and all have chosen their placements very carefully, in their chosen disciplines of what they want to do after college. You are right. They can't fail all 9 (I am not sure if this affects other courses too... ag, fishing, game) or just the equine course. It would look pretty bad on the college if 50% of students fail due to placements not being checked! I am going to speak with the placement team tomorrow and see what they say.

But the thing is the college has said she is not to go. So yes, they have messed up but that doesn't give you an entitlement to just let her go anyway because you think everything is fine. There could be other issues around placements and risk assessments that you aren't aware of that have to be administrated properly before placements. You have to find a solution but why exactly do you think you are so special that you can just ignore them. They have said it won't qualify to pass the course, are you going to ignore that too because you know you are right. Maybe work with the college on this.

@Dwellernf never did find the comment I was trying to talk about but perhaps the college will agree tomorrow to move the start date, or alternatively accept that insurance has been in place the whole time. What a palaver, hope it all gets sorted.

I would let the yard now exactly what's happened (if they don't already).

And it it was ok with them, I'd prioritise completing the work experience at the planned yard. That's more likely to result in your DD getting a job / positive reference / referrals afterwards than leaving them in the lurch and trying to get in somewhere else (even though its not her fault at all). And this is just reinforced by that other student being offered a job after her placement - I bet they're glad they still did the placement even though it won't 'count' to the college.

I'd be in touch with the governors or senior leadership of the college.

That's awful of the college and the course leader to be deflecting blame. I agree that your daughter should attend the yard as arranged and agreed. If the college refuse to allow this to count as her placement then you can be open to working with them to find another time to do another placement. Giving 2 days over a bank holiday to rearrange is not acceptable, it doesn't matter whose "fault" it was, the alternatives the college offered were not acceptable.

Surely a college student on a work experience placement cannot be a suitable replacement for a member of staff. The student should be supernumerary, not used as a member of rostered staff. I wouldn’t send her based on this alone.

I was just about to say this. This needs escalating upwards by all the parents and students involved. Nobody should be failing their course because of the colleges mistake. Your daughter not being able to travel 25 miles to a new placement with 3 days notice, over a Bank Holiday weekend, is very reasonable. The college is also seriously damaging relationships with yards which will affect their course long-term.

The college should be allowing extenuating circumstances. If the placement is an essential part of the course that must be assessed, then they need to be more flexible on when the placement is or the length of it this year. Or find another way of it being assessed.

I would write a very factual non-emotive email to the senior leadership of the college.

Present this to the college as an Either Or question as this stuff up is 100% the colleges fault and they seem to be lacking in any common sense.

Either your dd does her WE at the yard she has chosen and has all insurance in place and has had someone already doing their WE there within the last year and is only lacking a visit by them which could be done during her WE placement or the college pays for her taxi/Uber each day to and from their choice of yard

Whilst this might not technically be the tutors fault, they really did need to check that everything was in place prior to this weekend for their students to do their work experience. Otherwise it is going to look like they are a shit teacher if most of her students fail their course and that is going to have on going issues for them and the college.

Imagine looking up the pass rate of a college when new students are making their choice of colleges

Ds’s “trade” college closed down when government decided that GCSE’s in both Maths and English were needed to access Level 2 and 3 apprenticeships.

Despite everyone passing their level 2 course only one could go on to level 3 as everyone else only had English or Maths GCSE

Lovely highly successful college is now a block of flats.
And apparently now there is a lack of “home grown” qualified trades people in the UK

Wonder why that is?

The college can't stop your daughter working at the yard if it's an arrangement between the owner and your daughter, but it won't count towards work experience through college.
So by all means she can work there but she'll need to also do the placement at the other college approved place. It's annoying but there's nothing you can do really.

DD is actually more qualified (external, but industry recognised BHS qualifications... DD has stage 2 ) than the member of staff on leave. DD is in 2nd year of extended diploma, while staff member is first year school leaver and working towards stage 1.

Also DD works there paid during some holidays and weekends. She also works at their competitions. We are quite involved with the yard and DD and yard all know each other.

Part of my job is working on student placements & I am sitting here furious on your daughters behalf.

It is completely unacceptable of them to contact parents, on a holiday weekend & make it your responsibility to sort out? This an almighty fuck up of their making & it is their responsibility to make accommodations to rectify the matter.

I know how they are thinking - they are worried about legal implications if anything happens to any of the students - not worried about the students, mind, just how it will look for them & worried about getting their arses sued.

If the yard your daughter is going to has already had students there this year (& hopefully, they have had students doing the same thing as your daughter previously?), then when the yard manager gets back, ask if they have copies of previous documentation - that will be great evidence for you.

As others have said, get in touch with senior leadership & governors with all the information you have.

Once again, this is their fuck up & what they are asking is completely unreasonable & totally unacceptable & they need to work with the arrangements that are already in place.

Please keep us updated.

Most employers liability insurance covers work experience students and it takes moments to share with schools/colleges for their records.

I would probably write tomorrow off, but get the college to sort out the paperwork and plan to start from Wednesday.