Educational Psychology Funded Training (EPFT) Scheme Referee guidance notes 2018 entry
Contents 1. Introduction... 3 2. Referee eligibility criteria... 3 3. Timetable... 4 4. Providing the reference online... 4 5. Logging onto the EPFT online application system... 6 Forgotten your login credentials?... 8 6. Referee Home Page... 8 7. The Reference Form... 9 8. Submitting the reference... 11 9. Opting out of supplying a reference... 11 10. Security and Confidentiality... 11 11. Withdrawal... 11 12. Appendix: Reference form... 12
1. Introduction This handbook offers information and guidance for referees who have been asked to provide a reference for a candidate applying for post-graduate training as an educational psychologist. This is a demanding academic and practice-based training programme, leading to a professional qualification that permits the holder to register as a practitioner psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and to practise as an educational psychologist in the UK. Further details about the training and work of educational psychologists may be found on the websites of the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) at www.aep.org.uk and the British Psychological Society (BPS) at www.bps.org.uk. The 2018 Educational Psychology Funded Training (EPFT) scheme provides government funding in partnership with employers for 160 trainee educational psychologists. It is a fiveyear commitment, made up of a three-year doctorate degree course followed, upon qualification, by a period of employment as an educational psychologist in England for at least two years. The Department for Education (DfE) directly manages the government-funded element of the EPFT scheme. The Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) hosts and administers the EPFT scheme online application process. The participating universities, in partnership with employers, are responsible for selection of the successful applicants. Employers also offer practice placements in years two and three. Applicants for the 2018 intake must submit two references. As a nominated referee you will have been asked to provide either an Academic reference or a Relevant Experience reference for an applicant. You cannot provide both references for an individual applicant. You may be nominated by more than one applicant to provide references for them. 2. Referee eligibility criteria Academic reference: The referee should normally be someone who is familiar with the applicant s academic record and holds, or has held, a position as a lecturer/course leader/tutor in a higher education establishment where the applicant has undertaken a degree or postgraduate programme of study. However, if the applicant completed their degree some years ago and the university/college is unable to provide an academic reference, the applicant may instead nominate, for example, a supervisor of a recent course undertaken, or a senior manager who is able to provide details of the applicant s recent professional development or other learning undertaken. Only one academic reference will be accepted. 3
A relevant experience reference: This must be completed by the applicant s current or recent employer or manager who is familiar with, and in a position to comment on, the applicant s experience of working with children or young people within an educational, health, social care, youth justice, childcare or community setting. This should normally be experience gained within a paid employment setting but could be in a voluntary setting in which the applicant has worked for an extended period. A reference from an individual who is only in a position to provide a general character reference for the applicant, or who is a friend or close relative of the applicant, would not be considered acceptable as it will not provide appropriate support for the application. The two references must be written by two different individuals. Please make sure to submit your reference before the reference submission deadline of the 29 th November 2017. Applicants are encouraged to contact their preferred referees well in advance of the application system opening, to ensure that the referees are willing and able to provide a reference for them within the required timescale. If you have agreed to provide a reference for an applicant but for any reason no longer feel in a position to do so, please notify the applicant as soon as possible, to give them time to approach another referee. 3. Timetable The timetable for the application process is as follows: Online application system live 2 nd October 2017 Reference submission deadline 29 th November 2017 Application submission deadline 6 th December 2017 4. Providing the reference online Applicants are required to enter the contact details of their referees at the earliest opportunity. Once an applicant enters the contact details of their referee into the EPFT online system, a set of login credentials will be emailed directly to the referee, together with instructions about how to log on to the application website and complete a reference for the 4
named applicant. If you are providing references for multiple applicants, separate login credentials will be generated for each applicant. Although a single reference can incorporate the views of more than one person, this is not encouraged. The nominated referee should make clear when he/she is reporting the views of someone else. Academic referees are asked to provide an assessment of the applicant. In particular, your assessment of the applicant in the following areas: Academic ability, including details of academic performance and attainment to date and, if relevant, expected degree classification. Some indication of the candidate s performance in tutorial work, essay assignments and projects would also be useful. Performance in the task situation (if appropriate), including nature of the job requirements and the extent to which the candidate met them. Overall suitability for training as an Educational Psychologist. Interaction with others (fellow students, staff etc.). Please complete all questions in sections 1 and 2 of the form, and use section 3 to add a personal comment on suitability and to amplify your assessment covering the points listed above. Specific identification of strengths, needs and weaknesses would be particularly useful. Relevant experience referees are asked to provide an assessment of the applicant. In particular, your opinions of the applicant as they apply to your experience of him/her in the following areas: Intellectual competence: - To what extent is the applicant able to use common sense? - Is there evidence of creative thinking, ingenuity in problem solving? - Can the candidate make successful use of previous academic study? - Is the candidate suited to a further period of intensive academic work alongside demands of a more practical kind? Performance in the work situation: including nature of the job requirements and the extent to which the candidate met them: - Overall suitability for training as an Educational Psychologist. - Interaction with others (children, young people and families etc.). Specific identification of strengths, needs and weaknesses would be particularly useful. 5
5. Logging onto the EPFT online application system The application system allows referees to log on to the EPFT website in order to write and submit their reference on line. The website can be accessed via this web page: www.aep.org.uk/training. The EPFT website login page is shown below. (Please note that some screen shots included here may show dates relating to a previous application year). You will normally be sent your login credentials via email (or by post if the applicant has not provided an email address for you). These include the applicant s Name and Candidate ID together with your User ID and a temporary password. If you are providing references for multiple applicants, separate login credentials will be generated for each applicant. You will need to sign out from one applicant s account and log in to another applicant s account using your login credential for that account. 6
The automated email from the EPFT site could be diverted to a junk folder by your email application. To prevent this happening it is advisable to add the email address EPFT@aep.org.uk to your contacts/address list in your email application. Initial login As soon as possible after receiving the email with your login credentials you should go to the EPFT website home page and log onto the site by entering your User ID and temporary password in the appropriate boxes near the top of the web page. Please be aware that the User ID and password are case-sensitive. If you copy and paste them into the login form take care not to copy blank spaces, before or after the User ID and the password, otherwise they will not be recognised. If this method fails, try typing in the User ID and password directly to avoid entering spurious characters. Once you have successfully logged on to the system you will be prompted to enter your temporary password again, and then to create a new, permanent password, on the Change Password page (see below). Your new password should include the following characters: At least one lower case letter At least one upper case letter At least one number At least one of the following characters :!@~#$%^&*+-=(){}/ Thereafter you must use your new password and User ID to log onto the website to complete and submit your reference for the applicant concerned. Should you later wish to change this 7
password you can do so on the Referee Home page (see Section 6 below). However, you cannot change your User ID. Forgotten your login credentials? If you can t recall a username or password, please write to EPFT@aep.org.uk giving your full name and the email address you used to register on the system. If you are providing references for more than one applicant, please also supply the name and Candidate ID (if known) of the applicant concerned. The Forgotten your password link on the Welcome/login page will NOT send a new password to a Referee, but you can change your password after logging in (see Section 6). Support is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. We aim to respond within two working days. 6. Referee Home Page Once logged on you will be directed to the page shown below: The Referee Home page displays the name of the applicant concerned and details on how to complete their reference form. To access the reference form click on Edit Reference Form. Should you wish to change your password for this applicant s account then you can do so here by selecting Change Password near the top of the page. 8
7. The Reference Form All fields marked with a * are mandatory and must be completed in order for the reference to be submitted. Once you have submitted a reference you will not be able to amend it, but you can log in again to view the reference. Please see Appendix for copies of the reference web forms. The reference does not have to be completed in one session, but ensure that you save your partially completed work before exiting the site. As long as you have not submitted your reference you can return to this form at a later time to add to it or amend it. Please note: The online reference form will time out after a period of inactivity (i.e. not clicking Save) of about 20 minutes. We therefore recommend that you click Save at regular intervals (at least every 10-15 minutes) to avoid losing your work. For Question 3 you may find it easier to prepare your text offline in a word processor (e.g. Microsoft Word) then copy and paste it into the online form once you are logged on to the EPFT website. Note that this will only paste the text and not the formatting e.g. text will not appear as bold or italic etc. You should also note that there is a limit of 5000 characters for Question 3. Any text entered over this limit will not be saved. Some word processors (e.g. Microsoft Word) do not count 9
characters in the same way as the web form (e.g. they do not count spaces). Please go by the character count on the web form. Always check your answer after clicking Save to make sure it has been saved fully on the form. If you find that text has been lost at the end of the form it means you exceeded the character limit. Edit your answer to bring it within the limit. Alternative reference submission If you experience difficulty completing your reference on line, or would prefer to complete the form offline, please download the Microsoft Word reference template located at http://www.aep.org.uk/training/ under the Download Documents section. Once completed you should send the form by email to: EPFT@aep.org.uk Please note: this document must be completed electronically, using a compatible word processing application, so that we can upload it to the online system. 10
8. Submitting the reference Once you have completed the reference you can press Submit. If the reference form has been saved successfully, this will be confirmed on the screen and you will be prompted to log out of the system. You will still be able to log in to view your reference, but once it has been submitted, no further changes can be made. If you experience problems completing and/or submitting the reference, please email EPFT@aep.org.uk. Support is available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. We will try to respond to your email within two working days. 9. Opting out of supplying a reference Should you choose not to complete a reference for an applicant, please notify the applicant as soon as possible to give them time to find an alternative referee. Your reason for opting out does not need to be specified. If you are unable to contact the applicant directly, please contact the Association of Educational Psychologists at: EPFT@aep.org.uk. 10. Security and Confidentiality The unique login details that are sent to you are designed to ensure that there is a certain level of security. It is, therefore, not necessary to sign the reference before submitting it. By submitting the form electronically you are giving consent for the reference to be used for the designated applicant, in respect of their application to their selected training courses under the EPFT scheme only. The AEP operates in compliance with data protection legislation. The Data Protection Act 1998 gives applicants a right to access the data we hold about them. However, the Act also imposes on us a duty of confidentiality to third parties, which includes referees. We will not disclose references to applicants without the permission of the author. We will not process requests to view references until the application deadline has passed. If an applicant requests to see the reference you provided for them before the closing date for applications they will be advised to contact you directly. 11. Withdrawal If you wish to withdraw your reference at any time you must do so before the application has been submitted to the training providers. 11
12. Appendix: Reference form 12
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Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to: EPFT@aep.org.uk This document is also available from the AEP website. www.aep.org.uk