Policy and Guidance for Attendance of Social Work Placement Days
1. Purpose
This policy provides guidance for trainee social work students, link tutors, practice educators (PEs), and placement supervisors (PSs) regarding placement days, time recording, and attendance requirements. It ensures consistency, fairness, and alignment with professional expectations
This policy applies to all social work students.
In this policy:
- ‘Apprenticeship’ refers to students studying on an apprenticeship programme (BSc)
- ‘Direct Entry’ refers to students NOT on an apprenticeship programme (MA and BSc). These will be students who are self-funding their programme.
2. Placement Days
- Placements are measured in days, not hours.
- A placement day must consist of a minimum of 7 hours excluding lunch.
- For Direct Entry students only – half an official study day combined with half a placement day counts as a full placement day.
- Apprenticeship students’ study days or module teaching days are classed as theory only and cannot be combined with half a working day.
- Half days are not permitted in any other circumstances and cannot be combined to make a full placement day, except where explicitly allowed under Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) arrangements.
- For Direct Entry students only, recall days count as placement days. These will be added to your ARC record by HSC placements and will be itemised separately as ‘Social Work Recall Day’ with ‘Theory’ as the day description.
- For Apprenticeship students, all study days and module teaching days will be added to ARC as ‘Theory’.
3. Time Off in Lieu (TOIL)
TOIL is permitted only in specific circumstances and must reflect professional practice:
- TOIL may be accrued where:
– A specific placement experience is available which is not possible at other times (e.g. evening foster carer recruitment events).
– Service needs require additional working time (e.g. urgent or unexpected case demands).
– Must be agreed in advance with the placement supervisor/onsite educator.
– Must be taken within two working weeks of being accrued.
– Cannot be accumulated or banked for later use in the placement.
– The formal mechanism for recording TOIL will be confirmed separately.
4. Study Days – Direct Entry students only
- Study days must be recorded in ARC as worked hours.
- Students may take up to half a day per week for study.
- This may be arranged as a full day every fortnight, subject to agreement between the student and placement provider.
- Study days cannot be accrued and should be taken at regular intervals.
5. Reasonable Adjustments
- Reasonable adjustments are granted only in relation to health conditions or impairments (see Guidance on the Qualifying Education and Training Standards (2021) section 5.4).
- A Social Work Health Abilities Passport (HAP) must be completed where adjustments involve changes to standard working hours or conditions.
- In exceptional circumstances, adjustments may allow a student to work less than 7 hours per day.
Important considerations:
- Where reduced daily hours result in an extended placement duration, this may affect progression through the exam board.
- In such cases, students may need to interrupt their studies and resume in the following academic year.
6. Other Time Off Placement
If extenuating circumstances result in a reduction of completed days, the placement will need to be extended to compensate for this adjustment. Students may need to take time off during placement for unavoidable circumstances as follows:
6.1 Medical Appointments
- Attendance at essential medical appointments is permitted.
- Time must be recorded as absence on ARC timesheets.
6.2 Caring Responsibilities
- Where childcare or other caring arrangements unexpectedly break down, students must record this as an absence on ARC timesheets.
6.3 Recording Attendance
Only the following may be recorded as worked placement hours:
- placement work completed at any agreed location(all students)
- study days for Direct Entry students only.
- All other time must be recorded as either:
– Authorised absence, or
– Unauthorised absence
6.4 Making Up Time
- All absences (authorised or unauthorised) must be made up at the end of the placement.
- Students must complete the full requirement of 70 or 100 placement days, as applicable. This is a requirement of Social Work England.
6.5 Compassionate Leave
- Requests for compassionate leave (e.g. bereavement or attending a funeral) should be discussed with the placement supervisor/onsite educator and link tutor.
- Where approved, this will normally be recorded as authorised absence. All time missed will need to be made up in line with placement requirements.
7. Apprenticeship-Specific Arrangements
Apprentices on the BSc Social Work programme are fully governed by Social Work England (SWE) regulations. We recognise learners have dual status as both students and employees. However, Social Work England requirements take precedence over any other consideration when it comes to managing and accounting for time spent on placement.
7.1 Managing leave
Both employers and employees on the apprenticeship programme must give careful consideration to staggering annual leave during placement periods. This is firstly because concentrated learning, without lengthy interruptions, is the best way to ensure a successful placement outcome.
For more specific information about standards, visit BASW Professional Capabilities Framework to view:
- ‘End of first placement’
- ‘End of final placement’
Secondly, the University cannot extend placements after set submission dates due to the mandatory requirement for results to be presented at an exam board. This necessitates that leave is planned accordingly.
7.2 Non-standard working patterns
Some apprenticeship students may be contracted to work non-standard patterns. One example would be a 9-day fortnight working pattern. This involves working longer days over a two-week period to cover the equivalent hours to a full-time worker. In such cases, the student should complete 70 or 100 placement days of their contracted working day. They should do so even if this means spending a greater number of hours on placement and having a delayed end date compared to a student working standard office hours.
7.3. Study days and Module Teaching Days
For all apprenticeship students, study days and module teaching days are not classed as placement days and must not be recorded on ARC. This is because study time contributes to the mandatory 20% off-the-job training requirement and is counted as theory time rather than placement working time.
8. Responsibilities
- Students are responsible for accurately recording all time on ARC and adhering to this policy.
- The Placement Team are responsible for confirming completed placement days to the exam board, using only timesheets which have been approved in ARC by the PE/PS.
- Practice Educators/Placement Supervisors must ensure that arrangements (e.g. TOIL, study days, or absences) are agreed, appropriate, and documented.
9. Review
This policy will next be reviewed on 8 September 2027 and updated as required to reflect changes in guidance from Social Work England and other requirements.
SJD/CR/JS/KH/KO/LOH – 08/09/2026
