Young people in Gloucestershire are being offered the opportunity to gain valuable real-life experience when they participate in T-Level placements at county hospitals. 
Cirencester Hospital Radio, a voluntary organisation providing a 24/7 radio service for patients, is currently hosting Media and Production T-Level students Robert and Evie as Station Chairman Peter Beach explains:
“The students are T-level Students from Cirencester College across the road. They’ve got to come over the next 18 months and do around 315 hours of work experience and coming here a few times a week. On a Monday they do a live broadcast; so they prepare a programme and then they’ll present, between themselves, one will do the controls, one will talk, and then they’ll swap over every week. Then what we tend to do on a Friday, I have an MS Teams meeting with them for convenience and then we plan what they’re going to do and I also give them recordings to edit. So the guys who present during the week actually record their programmes, so the students then take away, as well as preparing their programme, they’ll take away some files and edit them. They get loaded onto our playout system as well. Over the course of the next 18 months, I’ll find a lot for them to do. Of course it’s not just presenting, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in the background; there’s loading up the playout system, there’s work editing the website, preparing and editing the recordings and there’s technical work if they want to get involved in that as well”.
Launched by the government in 2020, T-Levels are regarded as one of the biggest reforms to technical education; students can opt to take these courses instead of A-Levels following their GCSE exams. They were developed in collaboration with employers and businesses to ensure that the content of the courses meets the needs of employers while preparing students for work, further training or study.
As a 2-year technical programme for young people aged 16 – 19, industry placements are a mandatory and critical part of a T-Level and demonstrate a shift from traditional work experience to a longer, more substantial period in the workplace. Peter is delighted with his new colleagues:
“It’s been going very well, to be honest because they’re doing the media studies course, which they started in September, they’ve got quite a lot of experience already. So, they’re coming in, almost ready to go. So, I don’t have to spend a lot of time teaching them how to use the equipment because they know what a microphone looks like; they know how to talk, how to present and project themselves and they know how a mixer desk works and they understand the type of music that they need to choose for the audience. So actually, it’s been rather straightforward.
“I’m hoping that they’ll get good experience that will take them into the commercial world because, even though it is a fairly small-scale hospital radio station, the principle is still the same – you still have to learn how to prepare a programme, how to produce it, how to present and how to talk to your audience. They were involved in our committee meetings last week as well; so there’s all that as well. We have all the different functions like we have the technical officer, the treasurer, the chairman, the secretary and so on. So, they’ll learn something that they can take with them into the real world; the principles are still the same.
“They also bring some good skills to us as well, because they’re students learning contemporary methods of doing things; they know about new software and new equipment, so they can help us by bringing new ideas as well”.
Media and Production T-Level Student Robert is enjoying his placement:
“I love it because I’ve always been a very creative person, so when we’re creating our own shows and finding music and stuff, it’s a really fun activity and to see it all come together is really nice.”
T-Level student Evie adds:
“We do a bit of everything really. The most positive thing is it’s very media focussed. A lot of the other placement opportunities weren’t media focussed so mere more like doing a company’s social media or managing a company’s website which is not really what I’m in the course for. I’m more on the course for the content creation side of it, so doing the radio coincides with my course as well. My favourite aspect is definitely doing research for the shows. That’s a lot of fun because I get to create my own playlist, and there’s not really any limitations on what I can have, and I have the hour to talk about what I want to talk about and choose the genre and the songs – that’s definitely my favourite part of it.”
Watch the videos:
Evie: https://youtu.be/Tf6aUv_yeVM?si=ii7Jfz5ifyDCDWU0
Robert: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Dd5e8jdYleI
Peter: https://youtu.be/6K6gB1AT4DI?si=s3mduQrb9PDc6jCx
To find out about the latest T-Level opportunities at Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, email: T-Levels@ghc.nhs.uk
