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Practice Education in Social Work Stage I - SPY00049M

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  • Department: Social Policy and Social Work
  • Module co-ordinator: Ms. Polly Sykes
  • Credit value: 30 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23
    • See module specification for other years: 2021-22

Professional requirements

Candidates must be registered social workers with a minimum of two years' post-qualifying experience, according to the PEPS.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Autumn Term 2022-23
B Spring Term 2022-23
C Spring Term 2022-23 to Summer Term 2022-23

Module aims

The module is designed to enable candidates to acquire and consider the knowledge, value base, skills and confidence associated with enabling and supervising the practice of a student social worker, in accordance with the Practice Educator Professional Standards (PEPS). This will include helping candidates to:

  • Critically reflect upon their understanding of social work values and ethical practice, and learn how to support student social workers to develop their own professional value base.
  • Understand how to work with students to help them to gain a critical understanding of contemporary issues in theory, research, policy, legislation and practice.
  • Develop knowledge of supervisory models, roles and skills. Demonstrate awareness of the power dynamics between assessor and learner, and develop the ability to manage these dynamics effectively.
  • Understand and effectively implement a range of methods to assess professional competence of student social workers in line with the Professional Capabilities Framework.
  • Gain confidence to both support and challenge students effectively, in order to produce capable practitioners who can reliably support and intervene on behalf of the individuals and families who use social work services.

Module learning outcomes

The overall learning outcome of the course is that:

Candidates will be able to demonstrate that they have understood the theoretical base of practice education, applied the values set down by the HCPC, and met the PEPs guidance statements at M level equivalent. They will be able to supervise social work degree students up to but not including the final assessment prior to qualification, in accordance with Practice Educator Professional Standards at Stage 1:

1. Organise opportunities for the demonstration of assessed competence in practice (Domain A).

2. Enable learning and professional development in practice (Domain B), including the use of a range of supervisory models.

3. Manage the assessment of learners in practice (Domain C), including using a range of assessment models and marking students work.

4. Demonstrate knowledge and awareness of values for work based assessors as identified in HCPC and incorporated in the PEPS.

Indicative assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Portfolio & Assignment : Stage 1 portfolio
N/A 100

Special assessment rules

Pass/fail

Indicative reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Portfolio & Assignment : Stage 1 portfolio and essay
N/A 100

Module feedback

Portfolios marked within 8 weeks of hand in, and feedback provided. Candidates will be notified by email when the marks and comments are available for collection. Late submissions may be subject to a delay in marking

Indicative reading

Various reading suggested throughout course and in module reading list, to include the following journal sources:

Journal of Social Work Practice

Journal of Practice Teaching

Social Work Education

Journal of Social Work

Journal of Social Work Practice



The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.