Off venue activity (OffVenueActivity)

All StudentCourseSessions where applicable

The OffVenueActivity entity is required under the following circumstances:

• The student is undertaking a placement in the UK, it does not need to be credit-bearing or linked to any learning outcomes. This is the case for all placements linked to a course, unless they are at:
  • Providers in England: on a clinical placement or work-based placement as part of an apprenticeship course.
  • Providers in Northern Ireland: on a teacher training placement or clinical placement
  • Providers in Scotland: on a teacher training placement, clinical placement, or apprenticeship course. Study placements (primarily research trips and field trips) may be returned on an optional basis
  • Providers in Wales: on a clinical placement
• The student is outside the UK, unless they are writing up or will spend the majority of their engagement outside the UK.
• The activity is 20 days or longer in duration (including where multiple off venue activities between 5 and 20 days' duration have a combined duration of at least 20 days).

Placements returned should be a period of work or study activity that takes place off venue, that is part of the course and the provider has some hand in arranging.

Off venue activities need to be submitted throughout the StudentCourseSession, not just the reference period they occurred in. For example, if the activity occurs at the beginning of the StudentCourseSession, it must continue to be returned in every reference period the StudentCourseSession spans.

In addition to the country-specific exceptions above, the OffVenueActivity entity is not required for distance learning (as this is recorded in the StudyLocation entity).

Clinical Placements

Statutory clinical placements should not be returned in this entity. This refers to any clinical placement which is a compulsory element of the student's course. These include, but are not limited to:

• Social care
• Midwifery
• Healthcare
• Veterinary

The below definition has been provided by Health Education England for the placements that they will monitor separately:

'Any suitable supervised clinical, practical or other learning experience in a workplace environment provided, conducted or arranged by the placement provider for Learners; usually but not limited to an NHS trust, Foundation trust, GP surgery, dental practice and other organisations that form part of the National Health Service or who deliver placement learning funded by the NHS which for the purposes of this Agreement includes the private and voluntary sectors.'

 OffVenueActivity duration

Teacher training placements in England must be returned irrespective of duration. All other off venue activities that contain at least 20 days duration of activity are mandatory to return.

All other off venue activities that are between 5 and 20 days duration but, when combined with other off venue activities taking place over the StudentCourseSession, sum to a total length of 20 days or more, must also be returned. For providers in Northern Ireland and Wales, all activity should be first reported in the reference period where the 20 day duration has been achieved. For providers in Scotland, when it is intended that this threshold will be passed within a StudentCourseSession, the activity must be returned in the first reference period within that StudentCourseSession. 

Although optional, providers should be encouraged to return off venue activities that are less than 20 days in length.

If the placement spans more than one StudentCourseSession, the provider should split the activity between sessions, but only if the split activity puts at least 20 days in each StudentCourseSession: if splitting the activity would result in less than 20 days being reported for one of the sessions, then it should not be split. In these cases, the extra days should be returned in the session with the majority of the duration. If an activity spans StudentCourseSessions (with at least 20 days in each) the activity should be split between the StudentCourseSessions with the duration and dates reflecting the period attached to the current StudentCourseSession only.

If the student is studying a year long sandwich placement, this should be recorded in only one StudentCourseSession. This means, the fields which impact any funding regulations are held in one location. For example if a StudentCourseSession runs from September to June each year, but the student's sandwich placement starts in July and continues until the following September (14 months) the provider would only need to return one StudentCourseSession with the PLACEMENT flag field and the corresponding OffVenueActivity entity. The beginning few months (July to September) would be disregarded in the return and the main part of the sandwich placement would be flagged as the placement year.

Actual and planned dates

Example

In this example, the full OffVenueActivity is contained within one StudentCourseSession.

The student starts their placement part way through reference period one. At the point of returning reference period one data, the student is still on their placement and has completed more than 20 days. The student finishes their placement in reference period two.

In reference period one, return the placement activity and provide an estimated duration calculated based on difference between the two, excluding expected days not worked, weekends, holidays etc. In reference period two the provider would then return the placement with the correct duration (based on the same start date and correct end date).