Placement Co-ordinators: All You Need to Know

This guide is for Work Experience (WEX) and Industry Placement (IP) co-ordinators. It covers everything you need to know to set up, approve, run and complete placements in Navigate, from preparing at the start of the year through to final sign-off.

Key benefits for WEXP and IP co-ordinators

• The Navigate staff site is a powerful task-management tool providing an instant view of outstanding tasks, and quick, intuitive ways to complete them.
• Navigate automates key elements of the placement process, including all communications between you and employers, saving on average 1.5 hours of admin time per placement.
• Each placement is clearly presented in a one-page view, allowing you to easily view important placement details and track progress.
• You can record meetings, interactions, and documents against placements and employers, ensuring all important information is captured in a single space.

Key benefits for learners

• Navigate provides learners with an engaging mobile-first site where they can easily record and manage their placements.
• Learners can quickly log their placement attendance by completing placement journal entries straight from their phones, and are encouraged to upload photos, videos, documents, and other supporting evidence.
• The psychometric skill assessment makes learners aware of the impact their placement has had on their skills development.
• Learners can easily submit details of self-found placements by completing an intuitive step-by-step online form.

Information needed before you start

Responsibilities

• Which students are you responsible for?
• Do you share cohorts with another coordinator? If so, decide who has overarching responsibility and make them coordinator (T Levels can have more than one coordinator assigned).

College requirements

• Do you have initial parental consent to share medical details with an employer (if under 18 or EHCP/SEND)?
• Do you require parental consent for individual placements (if under 18 or EHCP/SEND)? You will need the parent/carer's name and email address for this.
• Is your college using Navigate due diligence for H&S checks?
• Are you using the ‘Request a Placement’ method?

Department/cohort specifications

• Target hours for: Enrichment Hours, Employer Engagement Hours, Employer Confirmed Placement Hours, and Student Confirmed Placement Hours.
• Is the course one or two years? If any target hours are to carry across two years, tick the boxes to drag them through.
• If using Request a Placement, do you have a target date for students to find a placement by?
• Do you have the placement description, objectives and frequency of communication for this cohort/subject?
• Confirm the placement type you are using for the cohort.
• Will you be scheduling college holidays for the placements? You will have to check scheduled dates are correct before approving.
• Do the students need DBS checks before the placement is agreed?
• Do you need to provide a letter of assurance to the employer?

Start of year: assign students to you as a coordinator

If you assign yourself as Coordinator to a cohort of students, your Placement Dashboard will ensure you have an overview of progress on these students and their placement status.

1. In the Student module, select a cohort of students that you will oversee as Coordinator.
2. Choose Actions > Request Placement.
3. Add a target date you wish them to submit their placement details back to you by, then click UPDATE.

By requesting a placement from students, you effectively give them a blank ‘Placement Details’ form to complete in their ‘My Placements’ module. When they submit it, it returns to your Placement dashboard for approval. Do this for all your students, requesting placements in groups with the same placement type and target date.

Set target hours

1. Go to the Student module and select a cohort of students that will have the same target hours and course length.
2. For the required duration of their course, add: Employer Confirmed placement target hours, Enrichment target hours, Employer Engagement target hours, and Student Confirmed target hours.
3. If you do not wish them to reset to 0 during the summer holidays, tick the Do Not Reset Target Hours boxes for each set of target hours. This allows the student to continue working toward this target – useful for 2-year courses.

Using Request a Placement

This is the best way to allocate students to you as a co-coordinator and oversee the process. The placement dashboard helps you manage your placements and negates the need for separate spreadsheets. Requesting a placement from a group of students in bulk:

• Allocates them to you as a co-ordinator.
• Enables you to set a target date for learners to find a placement by.
• Enables you to see who has and has not found a placement by the target date.
• Effectively gives the learner a blank placement details form to complete without any paperwork.
• Lets them know you are their co-ordinator when completed.
• Returns forms to your dashboard to approve and manage.

Not using Request a Placement

Your college may decide to receive placement details in a different way. There are two ways you can do this:

• You can still request a placement from a student, which links them to you as a coordinator and lets you add the target date the learner needs to find a placement by. This adds a blank placement record ‘Awaiting Details’ against the student to be filled in by staff. The learner will still have a blank placement details form but won't know to complete it unless instructed.
• Alternatively, when a student finds a placement, you can add the placement to the student's page yourself via Add Placement, then track its progress using your dashboard.

The Placement Dashboard

The dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of each stage of your cohort's progress, including:

• Placements approved and pending the start date, but where compliance is not in date.
• Placements completed by active students with you as Coordinator.
• Placements submitted by the student for you to check and approve.
• Placements a student has completed and submitted for you to sign off.
• The option to view your own placements or ‘others’.
• Placements that are either live or pending without compliance – click into each bar for details.
• Any placements awaiting approval.
• See All – see all placements. When you request a placement and set a target date, this shows students reaching their target date without submitting a placement.

Placement record statuses

• Awaiting details: student has been requested a placement and not yet submitted it. Status: ‘Seeking placement’.
• Requiring Confirmation of Employer Details: the student has submitted a placement with an employer not on your database. The employer needs checking first to ensure it is not a duplicate.
• Placement request awaiting approval: a placement has been sent to you for approval.
• Placement approved and pending: all agreed approvals attained, just awaiting the start date.
• Placement live: the student should be attending and completing their journals.
• Placement completed – awaiting internal sign off: the student is confirming they have completed their placement. Check everything is complete before signing off.
• Placement completed: all parties have completed all stages and you have signed off as complete.
• Completed placement requires more information: you have returned the placement to the student for further actions before you sign off.
• Completed placement rejected: all elements of the placement have not been completed with no further opportunity to do so (for example, the student left college early and the placement is not considered suitable for an audit).

Handling ‘Requiring Confirmation of Employer Details’

From your dashboard, click into this status to see all placements submitted by students that need the employer details checked. The Start date column shows the soonest hoping to go out (tap to change the filter order). Compliant requests can be dealt with quickly; non-compliant ones need further action.

Learner Details tab

• Parental Approval Required: do you require parental permission for this placement? Yes/No. If Yes, add the parent name and email in the two boxes below.
• Parental Recipient and Parental Email: the parent's name and email address.
• Send Confirmation Email to Parent? Would you like the parent to receive a copy of the placement details once approved by all parties?
• Add any student H&S/medical notes to be viewed by the employer, student and (if parental approval is ticked) parent. You will need parental approval before sharing any medical notes; gain this before creating the placement using the college's procedure.

Employer tab

1. Go to Quick links > Search for an employer and start typing the name the student gave. If the student misspelled the name but an alternative is found with the same address, delete what the student added and start typing the correct spelling to autofill the correct details. Check the manager is correct for this placement, or add the new one provided by the student. Make a note of these contact details before replacing with the database details.
2. If the suggested employer is not already in your database, use the student's details to do a quick internet search to verify them. Then click + Add Employer to Database?, complete the pop-up (Employer Organisation name, business type/sector), and SAVE. Confirm ‘Are you sure you want to add this employer?’ with YES if you are certain it is not a duplicate.
3. Back in the placement record, start typing the newly created Employer Organisation name and continue through the tab. Add the manager and SAVE.

Email options on the Employer tab:

• Show Employer contact details to student: in most cases this is ticked so the student can view these details.
• Send emails to the Work Placement Manager: if not ticked, the employer will not receive placement approval, attendance or feedback emails.
• Send emails to the Placement co-ordinator: good practice to keep on so you can see the emails going out, forward them to the employer if needed, or confirm attendance on their behalf.
• Don't send emails: some online providers or internal placements may not need emails sent.

Compliance

• If this is a new employer, click to Send Employer Due Diligence Form. Best practice is to call the employer first to check their details and expectations before sending the form.
• You will be informed by a Navigate Learning email when the form is returned; it will also show in the Employer and Placement audit trails. Check the form thoroughly according to your college policy.
• To update compliance, locate the employer and go to the Compliance section > YES. Set Compliance Approval Date (today), Compliance Expires Date (employer liability certificate expiry date), H&S Approval Date (today) and H&S Expiry Date (per your college policy).
• Whichever expiry date elapses first will make the employer and any live or pending placements non-compliant.

Once compliance is updated, the placement moves into the status ‘Placement request awaiting approval’.

Handling ‘Placement request awaiting approval’

From your dashboard, click into this status. Click the student's name to enter the placement awaiting approval and check the tabs:

• Learner Details tab: confirm parental approval requirements as above.
• Employer tab: the student may have added a new Work Placement Manager to an existing employer – check the details are full and correct. If compliance has expired, you may not need a new due diligence form; if college policy allows, call to check if any H&S elements have changed, or use a new ELI document to update the expiry date.

Placement Details tab – these are the details agreed by the college, employer, student and (if required) parent:

• Placement co-ordinator: auto-populated with whoever requested or added the placement – can be changed at this stage.
• Placement planned hours: how many hours you require the student to complete.
• Placement type: select the correct type set by your college to gather cohort data. If unsure, ask.
• Location type: may also be used to gather data for different cohorts.
• Daily non-fundable break times and travel time: used for some mandatory and all T Level placements.
• Placement description: may have been added by the student – check if it needs editing.
• Placement objectives: what you require of both the employer and student during the placement.
• Frequency of communication: let the employer know the expectation of contact – e.g. initial approval email, weekly attendance emails, end-of-placement feedback form, and two visits/reviews.
• Dress code: the student may have added this – edit/amend where needed.
• Dates: double-check the student's dates are correct. Have they added college holidays unnecessarily? Used the 24-hour clock correctly? Followed the UK working time regulations for under-18s? If the dates cannot be added in full, or the end date is unsure, add a ‘holding date’ for the last day of the course – an employer feedback form is generated when the last scheduled date passes, so this stops it sending prematurely. SAVE.

Check the scheduled hours – are there enough to fulfil the placement requirements, and not too many? Once the Learner, Employer and Placement Details tabs are complete, click SAVE. You have created a placement.

Approving a placement

1. If you are happy for the placement to go ahead, select the Approvals tab.
2. Click Internal Approval and fill in your name, date, and method of approval.
3. An email is sent automatically to the employer from Navigate Learning to approve the placement (if ‘Send emails to Work Placement Manager’ is ticked). When the employer approves via email, the approval box turns green. Employer approval can be completed manually on their behalf – best practice is to add a note explaining why you overrode it.
4. Process any parent approvals if required. If ‘Parent Approval Required’ was answered No, this box is already green. If Yes, ensure the parent's email is added; they receive an approval email similar to the employer's, and the box turns green once returned.

To approve a placement at a later date: go to the Placements module, click Pending Awaiting Internal Approval, select the placement to review and approve, and follow the steps above. Double-check the expected start date has not already passed – the starting scheduled date may need amending.

Placement is live

The placement is now ready to go live. The learner can view the placement details from their Navigate site and complete daily journal entries once the placement has started.

Student confirmation of attendance

1. Students log into their site and click on the Placements module.
2. They fill out placement details if requested to find their own placements.
3. They complete pre-placement checklists with yes/no questions.
4. Once the placement begins, they log their daily attendance: locate the placement and click Confirm attendance and complete journal, then click I attended and provide details of their activities (they can upload photos, videos and reflections using their phone), or click I did not attend and provide reasons using the dropdown.

Automated weekly employer attendance approval: forms are sent weekly in arrears for the employer to confirm student attendance. The three columns – scheduled, student logged and confirmed hours – should all be around the same number. If they don't match, the student may not be confirming their days, the manager email may be incorrect or turned off, or the student may not have started yet and the start date needs amending. A conversation with the student or employer will help you understand why. Click into Placement live for a grid view of your live placements.

Completing a placement

1. The employer receives an employer feedback form approximately 48 hours before the last scheduled date.
2. The student completes their feedback form in the placement module and clicks Mark placement as complete. If any tasks are incomplete, Navigate prompts them to complete them.
3. The placement is sent to the coordinator to check and complete. From your dashboard, click into Completed requiring sign off.
4. Review the final details and ensure all data is logged accurately. Ensure the end date is confirmed by both the student and the employer, and remove the holding end date if one was added.
5. If everything is complete, click Mark as complete. If more information or work is needed, click Mark as incomplete and follow up with the student.

To give students access to add further details after a placement is marked complete, navigate to the placement, click the Completion tab and click Reset Status. The placement is now editable; follow the completion process to mark it complete when ready.

Learner Placement Status

Learners may need to complete one or more placements in their placement journey. A manually set status in the Student record indicates to the Tutor and other staff where this student is on their journey. This is separate to the placement record status (the status of an individual placement).

• Placement not required: manually set in the student record.
• Placement required: manually set in the student record.
• Seeking Placement: auto-sets when the Coordinator requests a placement.
• Placement awaiting approval: auto-sets when the student submits a placement or the coordinator adds one and it is awaiting any approval.
• Placement approved and pending: auto-sets when the placement is approved and awaiting the first placement day.
• Placement active: auto-sets while the placement is active.
• Placement activity completed awaiting sign off: auto-sets when the student has submitted the placement as complete, awaiting Coordinator sign-off.
• Placement activity completed for the year: manually set when the Coordinator has marked the placement complete and the journey for that academic year is finished. If the journey is not complete, the Coordinator can request another placement or set the status to ‘Placement required’.

Source document attached below.