Become an external placement educator

About our placements

Our allied health professional degrees require students to complete placements in the authentic workplace environment. The placements are designed to enable students to reach the expected professional competencies through experiencing the real world of work across varied settings. 

Students are supervised by staff from sites in the public and private health sector, education, disability and other private and non-government organisations.

Students undertake placements in the following disciplines:

• exercise and sports science
• medical radiation sciences
• occupational therapy
• physiotherapy
• rehabilitation counselling
• speech pathology.

How to become a placement educator

For professionals interested in offering placements, please contact the relevant work integrated learning discipline contact.

Why become a placement educator? 

As an educator, you will experience the personal reward of contributing to the growth and development of your future colleagues and thus growing your profession. In return, students bring to placement their enthusiasm, zest for learning and the latest research findings to inform their and your clinical reasoning. 

You'll have access to education and workshops, and the University of Sydney library. We also invite some individual placement educators to apply for an honorary clinical title in recongition of their significant contributions.

2022 placement calendars

The 2022 placement calenders are now available for reference. Note that these dates may be subject to change and may not apply to students following a non-standard placement progression:

• diagnostic radiography (pdf, 426.5kb)
• exercise sport science and exercise physiology (pdf, 128kb)
• occupational therapy (pdf, 145.3kb)
• physiotherapy (pdf, 155kb)
• speech pathology (pdf, 88kb)

Development and workshops

We provide external educators with interactive opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills in organising, structuring, and carrying out high quality student placement experiences. We offer a series of Placement Educator Development modules.

The modules have online content and learning activities and zoom discussions. These are on various days and at various times throughout the six week period. Participants sign up for six weeks’ access to all modules and may complete as many or as few of the modules as they wish. 

To complete every module, participants should allocate 2-3 hours each week including the zoom meetings.

The program will run four times in 2022. Please click here to register your interest. The dates are currently being planned.

Enquiries: shs.wilworkshops@sydney.edu.au