SBT’s student placement opportunities this year

This year, SBT has a new student placement coordinator, Sarah Batchelor. We sat down and talked with her about what learning opportunities SBT will be offering this year, as well as how we’re hoping to give back to students.

What student learning opportunities will SBT be offering this year?

Sarah Batchelor
Sarah Batchelor

SBT is keen to support as many students as possible this academic year, from a range of universities. We have offered three placements so far:

  1. A three-week project-based placement for a pair of students from the University of Essex, in which we plan to continue the trial of our newly-updated CommSEY screening tool for children in early years
  2. An eight-week summer placement for a pair of students from City, University of London
  3. A 60-day summer placement for an international student from McGill University in Canada.

Both summer placements will provide the students with a variety of learning opportunities in both mainstream primary school and clinic settings, including experience in assessing children and delivering interventions.

How do the placements tie in with the SBT student grant?

SBT is committed to supporting students studying to become speech and language therapists, both through the student placement programme and through the student grant programme. The grant programme has now been running for a number of years. This year, we plan to award £500 each to three successful applicants. In addition, the recipients will have access to various SBT opportunities as the academic year progresses, such as training sessions. 

What’s SBT’s ethos about students and student learning?

As a team, we take our responsibility as practice educators for students very seriously. We plan and prepare well in advance to ensure that the experience for our students is relevant, valuable and varied. We recognise that students need a balance of supervisory support with the opportunity to develop skills in independent clinical practice.

As a company, we enjoy offering student placements and understand that the experience is just as beneficial for us as clinicians as it is for the students.

What do you think students will be most interested in?

Previous students have said that gaining hands-on, practical experience in clinical settings and understanding the reality of daily life as a speech and language therapist are the most important aspects of the placements programme. Students appreciate the opportunity to be fully-involved, with continual support: in assessing, planning and delivering intervention and in collaborating with parents and other professionals working with their clients.

How does this compare with what you know about other organisations’ approaches?

There are excellent placement opportunities out there for students, offered by a range of organisations. I can only speak for the SBT approach: a firm, whole-team commitment to offer supportive and valuable placement experiences for our students.

Will it be in-person, virtual or hybrid? Group or individual? Who will be providing the learning?

Most of the time spent by our students on placement should be in-person! Students will be in schools and/or in our SBT clinic, which we will be re-opening soon. Some administrative work may be carried out remotely, if appropriate. 

Each student who joins us will be given a designated practice educator (possibly a pair of PEs) with whom they will meet regularly to discuss and reflect on placement experiences and further learning opportunities.

At the beginning of their placements, students will be fully ‘inducted’ and taken through relevant SBT practices. Students are also invited to join any SBT team learning events, including workshops and team meetings, during their time with us.

When did you start this role and why do you want to do it?

I took on the role as SBT placement co-ordinator at the start of this academic year. I was very lucky to benefit from some excellent placement experiences myself as a student and have always had an interest in supporting others training to be speech and language therapists.

During the pandemic, offering student placements was obviously difficult for most organisations; post-pandemic, I am excited to be involved in the ‘ramping-up’ of our student placement offerings here at SBT.

Which universities will SBT offering placement opportunities to? 

We looked carefully at the placement needs of several universities, and then offered to those we were able to sensibly cater for. We were keen to offer our first placements to the University of Essex to broaden the range of universities we have ties with.

We were first contacted by McGill University in 2018 and, later in that academic year, a student of theirs joined us and had a very positive placement experience. We are keen to replicate that experience this year and to benefit from a different perspective on speech and language therapy learning and practice from another country.

How does this tie into SBT’s international profile and work?

SBT has a strong history of having an internationally diverse workforce, with team members coming from America, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Malaysia and Hong Kong, to name just a few countries! We believe that there are learning opportunities when colleagues who have trained in different parts of the world come together and share their experiences with one another.

If you are interested in a placement opportunity with SBT, please email Sarah Batchelor