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Work placements by subject

Initial Teacher Education placements

Our teacher training placements are dealt with by the Schools Liaison office, a part of the faculty's Partnership Office.

Find out more about the Partnership Office

Events, hospitality, retail, and tourism and travel placements

Courses in events, hospitality, retail, tourism and travel at the School of Sport and Service Management include an optional 48-week work placement.

Find out more about 48 week-work placements

There are also opportunities for you to take part in shorter internship placements during your studies.

Sport and Leisure Management BA(Hons) placements

The placement programme for the Sport and Leisure Management BA (Hons) has been recognised by the Higher Education Academy for the subject area of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism as one of a number of examples of national best practice.

Placements are the most promising vehicle through which to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and industrial practice.

The challenge is to sustain a placement system that assesses the skills and abilities of the students in the context of their knowledge and understanding in order to permit students to diversify, whilst at the same time producing graduates with evidence of their abilities.

Inherent within the practices are two fundamental principles that have been identified as examples of best practice.

First, the building of experience, with employers and businesses, into courses through partnerships, and second, embedding employability within a rigorous academic curriculum and making employability explicit within the academic learning experience.

The process aims to adhere to the intended objectives for placements set out by the National Council for Work Experience. These are to:

  • Link theory and practice by providing practical experience of work to reinforce and complement the academic components of the course of study
  • Obtain source material for a project or dissertation which forms part of the academic assessment of the placement period
  • Learn new technical skills
  • Reinforce and complement existing skills
  • Develop and exercise thinking in a practical context
  • Encourage self-development through critical reflection
  • Acquire knowledge, key skills and competences relevant to the subject discipline, workplace and the later stages of the course of study

When asked what about what they had learnt, some common themes emerged amongst the students’ responses. These were:

  • Students developed new understandings (sustainable development, empathy and respect for others, technological innovations).
  • Skills development (technical and workforce skills, collaboration and communication skills, leadership skills, commercial awareness, entrepreneurial and business skills).
  • Empowerment (increased confidence, increased self-esteem, increased motivation to succeed).
  • Contribution to the social good (critical evaluation of meeting community needs, promoting a lifelong commitment to civic engagement and social responsibility, identifying themselves as, possibly, the next generation of social entrepreneurs).

Read testimonials from our students on placements...

Sport Journalism BA (Hons) placements

"Any student will tell you the same thing. It’s all very well learning in a classroom or a lecture hall, but let me out there, let me out in the real world and I’ll show you what I can really do."
Sport Journalism Student.

Work placements are the time when students go out and put all they’ve learnt into practice, when students get an idea of the gap between textbook theory and the coal face, when they fully comprehend the meaning of the word 'deadline'.

It’s when they sharpen their skills and find out what it’s really all about. It’s also a time when they’ll make the contacts and get the numbers they’ll call when they leave college.

In the last year, Sport Journalism students have gone to a dazzling array of different places, all giving a different experience yet all fulfilling the same brief: to bridge the gap between college life and the working world.

The list includes Hayter’s sports news agency, The Independent On Sunday, The Eastbourne Herald, Sovereign Radio, Ace magazine, Loaded, Arsenal football club, Wasps rugby club and a regular placement at Sky Sports News.