One in three degree apprentices have learning difficulties or disabilities but are embarrassed to declare them to employers and providers, research by Cognassist has revealed. Independent learning plans (ILPs) are documents that provide recommended reasonable adjustments to support students with a health condition or disability. As academic mentors, we must strive to ensure that students with ILPs have the same experience in degree apprenticeship programmes as students without them. Here are ways to do this:
Provide guidance during induction
Induction events act as opportunities to inform all students about accessibility services and ILP support in a non-judgmental way. Leverage these by giving lectures, offering one-to-one guidance, inviting accessibility advisers to speak to students and handing out flyers detailing relevant support. Inductions are also great opportunities to visit accessibility departments and attend face-to-face appointments with students who need ILPs.
Familiarise yourself with ILPs and accessibility teaching requirements and recommendations
As academic mentors, we must familiarise ourselves with our students’ ILPs. Take the time to learn about teaching requirements and recommendations for students with ILPs so that you are in a position to support them adequately.
Review and discuss ILPs
Learners newly diagnosed with learning difficulties or disabilities might have no prior knowledge of what support is available. Therefore, the ILPs can be generic and not tailored to their individual needs. This is why it is important to review a newly issued ILP to ensure it is relevant to learners’ specific needs. Be ready to encourage those who might be hesitant to get theirs updated.
Reviewing existing ILPs during each progress review meeting is vital to ensuring apprentices are adequately supported. This is because the needs of those with ILPs could change during the programme.
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Provide off-the-job logging support
Off-the-job training is a vital part of every degree apprenticeship programme. It allows students to gain knowledge and skills that demonstrate their competency in their jobs. One of the challenges for apprentices is calculating and recording it. It is an even bigger challenge for apprentices with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
You can use progress review meetings to discuss the importance of logging weekly off the-job training and brainstorm solutions together with their employer mentor. The solution can be as simple as creating a recurring calendar meeting at the end of their study day reminding them to log their off-the-job training.
Students with ILPs who struggle to update their off-the-job training regularly might also struggle to provide additional information indicating that their off-the-job training is meaningful and of high quality. Another challenge is teaching the students what information should be in their logs and checking their understanding.
During the initial progress review meeting, you could discuss the information they need to include in their logs and provide examples, check their understanding and agree on action they can take to improve their logging next time. During the next progress review meeting, you could review the action and check for improvement. Acknowledge and provide feedback and use positive reinforcement to motivate your students to work on further improvements, if needed.
Keep in touch with the apprentice in between progress review meetings
Progress review meetings with degree apprentices are conducted every 12 weeks. They involve the apprentice, their academic mentor and employer mentor and the goal is to monitor the degree apprentice’s progress. However, on their own, they might be insufficient in supporting students with ILPs.
To keep students progressing, provide additional support between them. For example, you could instruct students to provide different types of off-the-job training logging for your review and organise one-to-one meetings to give them timely feedback. This prevents them having to wait until the next progress review meeting to understand how they are progressing.
Regularly check in with employer mentors to ensure consistency in approach
Educate and brief employer mentors on the off-the-job training logging expectations and work with them to ensure students with ILPs are equipped to succeed. Familiarise employer mentors with the logging process before progress review meetings and provide examples of best practice during them. Finally, explain what kind of support and strategies they could employ. Make notes of everything discussed during the meeting and disseminate notes to all participants afterwards. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Supporting students with ILPs has its challenges. However, as long as you understand the needs of your students and ensure a consistent approach you can set up these individuals for success.
Joskaudė Pakalkaitė is an academic mentor and associate lecturer on the digital and technology solutions professional (BSc) degree apprenticeship programme at the University of Exeter.
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