Placement and Off Venue Activity examples
Example 1
Student A goes on two separate work placements in the reference period. They go to France for 10 days (1 Sep to 10 Sep inclusive), and Germany for 12 days (1 Oct to 12 Oct inclusive).
Both work placements are less than 20 days; however, when summed together, are more than 20 days. Therefore, both placements would be in coverage to return in the reference period.
Example 2
Student B starts on a course in March and therefore their StudentCourseSessions cross multiple reference periods. The student does a two-week work placement in Italy in the reference period (1 Jun 2025 to 14 Jun 2025 inclusive). The provider at that point does not know whether they will do more than 20 days total activity across the StudentCourseSession so chooses not to return them in the first reference period.
Student B then does a two-week work placement in China in the next reference period (1 Oct 2025 to 14 Oct 2025 inclusive). As this has now breached the threshold, the provider would need to return both placements in the second reference period.
First reference period – nothing returned
Second reference period – as below diagram
Note: this principle applies across the boundaries between annual collections and in-year collections.
Example 3
Student C does a 12-day work placement in Belgium in reference period one. The provider at that point does not know whether they will do more than 20 days over the course of their StudentCourseSession so chooses not to return them in reference period one.
Student C does not do a placement in reference period two. The provider does not need to return any OffVenueActivity data as the 20-day threshold has not been reached.
Example 4
The provider returns student D as having completed an OffVenueActivity, in reference period one. After the data was signed off however, the provider realises that student D never started/completed that activity.
In reference period one the OVAID D1 and D2 activities were returned. In reference period two OVAID D3 has also been completed, so OVAID D2 and D3 activities are returned. OVAID D1 was removed from the submission.
Note: this principle applies across the boundaries between annual collections and in-year collections.
Example 5
Student E 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 therefore the exact end date is unknown. The student finishes their placement in reference period two.
Note: In this example, the full OffVenueActivity is contained within one StudentCourseSession.
Example 6
Student F does a four-year course where the third year is a sandwich placement which meets the definition of being a thick sandwich placement according to the relevant funding body or regulator. The student starts their course in September each year, however the placement starts a little earlier in mid-June (13 Jun 2024 to 31 Aug 2025).
Funding bodies and regulators will allow providers to use their discretion if the placement year is generally reflecting a ‘year’ of their course. In these cases, providers can just return the OffVenueActivity (and other fields such as the StudentCourseSession.PLACEMENT flag) associated with the third StudentCourseSession and can ignore the parts that will overlap with other adjacent StudentCourseSessions.
This guidance for recording the data this way should make returning the data simpler, as providers will not need to artificially construct the data to fit the model.
Example 7
As in the above example 6, if a provider is not able or does not want to use their discretion when returning the sandwich placement in OffVenueActivity, they can instead opt to return the specific splits.
In this example the provider returns the OffVenueActivity split against the two StudentCourseSessions that the sandwich placement overlaps with. And the StudentCourseSession.PLACEMENT flag would be returned in each case.
Example 8
Student G is studying for a medical degree and undertakes a clinical placement which is a compulsory element of the course.
The provider does not need to return any OffVenueActivity data for this placement.
Example 9
Student H is studying on an apprenticeship course at a provider in England or Scotland. The student undertakes a work-based placement as part of the course.
The provider does not need to return any off OffVenueActivity data for this placement.
Example 10
Student H is studying on an apprenticeship course at a provider in Northern Ireland or Wales. The student undertakes a work-based placement as part of the course.
Example 11
Student J is studying for a PGCE and attends two school placements which are a compulsory element of the course.
Placement one runs from 12 September to 16 December. Placement two runs from 9 January to 28 July.
Note: that the length of teacher training placements no longer needs to be returned in days but must be returned irrespective of the duration.
Example 12
Student K is studying on a four-year course where the third year is a provider placement. However, when Student K gets to their third year the placement does not begin straight away – perhaps because the placement has not yet been found or it will start later in the year. The placement starts in November and lasts until July.
For students where a SessionYear exists, start the next StudentCourseSession at the point the placement activity starts. Quality rules will pick up the gap between the SessionYear and StudentCourseSession, so an explanation of the difference between the two start dates will be required.
For students without a SessionYear (those on fully flexible, postgraduate research or credit accumulation courses) a period of dormancy should be returned to show that there is no activity to be reported at the start of the StudentCourseSession. When the placement starts, they should be returned as Active and an OffVenueActivity entity should be returned.
