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School of Environment, Education and Development

Field Courses and Placements

Key Contacts

Field Course PS Team (seed.placements@manchester.ac.uk)

  • Nick Ritchie (TLSE Coordinator) 
  • Jenny Rackham (TLSE Administrator)
  • Katie Tynan (TLSE Assistant) 
  • Aidan Barker (TLSE Assistant)

Field Course Team

  • Chris Darvill (Associate Director for Field Courses)
  • Laura Ingleby (Teaching and Learning Manager)

Residential Field Courses

The School of Environment, Education and Development has developed a SEED Field Course Policy. The policy should be adhered to when planning a new field course. All existing field courses will be reviewed against the policy.

Resources

If you are proposing a new field course you should read the relevant documents listed above carefully and ensure you meet the timeframes outlined.

Existing field courses

The call for rolling over a field course to the next academic year will be at the start of June, before the academic year the course runs. Unless you have specifically made contact with the Field Course Team we expect that your field course will run in the same location and rough format as the current academic year. If you wish to change the field course to run in a different country, or change the location in the same country and the risk has changed, we will consider this a new field course and the field course will need to adhere to the SEED Field Course Policy. 

Field course leads will be required to submit a form confirming the details of the field course for the next academic year between 1st June-31st July. This will include a first draft of the itinerary, activity plan and risk assessment. 

Please ensure you fill in the Residential Field Course Request Form by the deadline of 31st July 2024. Please ensure you use a University managed computer to complete the form to allow you to submit and upload your first draft risk assessment with the form.

Field Course Committee meeting

The Field Course Committee meeting will be held 3 times a year, usually in May, September and January. All field course leads will be invited to the committee meeting to discuss process, raise issues and share best practice.

Lessons Learned / Post-Review

On return from the field course, the field course lead will be invited to a meeting with the Associate Director of Field Courses and a PS member of staff to discuss lessons learnt, near misses and details of any adjustments made to the itinerary.

Day Field Trips

All proposed dates and destinations for day field courses must be approved by the Head of Department before submitting the request form, please see link further down this page.

When timetabling field courses, where participants of the joint honours programme in Geology are to attend, please take into account factors such as teaching and programme committees in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences as well as in SEED.

When arranging your field course, you should complete the below online Day Field Course Request Form. This form will automatically be emailed to seed.placement@manchester.ac.uk, Teaching, Learning and Student Experience Coordinator for Placements when completed.

You will require the following information in order to complete the form:

  • module code
  • name of field course leader
  • destination
  • date of trip
  • departure and return times
  • number of attendees, students and staff (staff ratio should be 1 to 15)
  • transport requirements (coach, minibus either with or without driver or hire car)
  • fieldtrip itinerary
  • confirmation of risk assessment (either a generic or full risk assessment should be completed)

Risk assessments

Further information about risk assessments can be found in the SEED Field Course Planning Guidelines.

Risk Assessment Templates: 

When completing a risk assessment for a fieldtrip please include:

  • The module code associated with the fieldtrip
  • The number of students and number of staff attending (should be 10:1 for high risk and 15:1 for low risk)
  • Name of the first aid trained member of staff
  • An itinerary of all activities that the students will be participating in

For questions regarding the logistics of the fieldtrip please contact the fieldwork and placements team: seed.placements@manchester.ac.uk

If you would like advice or support with your risk assessment or an update on the review process, please contact SEEDEstates@manchester.ac.uk

Field courses

Finance – applying for cash passports; expenses

Please follow the link below for information on how to arrange funds and claim back expenses for fieldwork.

Placements

All placements are managed through the MyPlacement system and students will receive a link to the system once they are at a point where they need to register their placement activity. 

The Placement Team currently covers placements for the following areas:

  • Industry based year-long placements (Geography and Planning)
  • Short-term placements (Manchester Institute of Education and Planning)
  • Applied Study Periods (Manchester Institute of Education, Geography)
  • School-based placements (Manchester Institute of Education and University College Interdisciplinary Learning)   

Travel costs for placements:

Currently we offer travel costs for the following placements. Students will be contacted with information on how to make a claim once they have confirmed their placements.

  • BA Management, Leadership and Leisure
  • BSc Educational Psychology
  • MA Educational Leadership
  • MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education
  • MA International Education
  • MA TESOL
  • All UCIL placements
  • BSc Education

Please note that International Study programmes are looked after centrally by the Placement and International Programmes team.

Contact

Programmes and Curriculum Team – seed.programmes@manchester.ac.uk