Placement Travel Information

The University of Cumbria works in partnership with a broad range of schools located across Cumbria, Lancashire, London, Scotland, the North East of England, and Northern Ireland. In line with national training regulations, students enrolled on programmes based in England must undertake placements that are primarily located within England.

In addition to school placements, the university also offers placements in healthcare settings, which are mainly situated across the North West of England. The majority of these are allocated within Cumbria and Lancashire.

Placement locations are based across the North West of England and may vary from student to student. While the University takes home addresses into account when allocating placements, for example, a student living in Bolton may be placed within commuting distance, this cannot be guaranteed.

The university is committed to providing placement opportunities that fulfil the academic and professional requirements of each course. Please note that the university retains the right to assign placements at any of its partner schools or health care settings.

The University is committed to challenging and tackling discrimination and to actively promote equality and good relations across all areas of its activity. In addition to this, the university offers help and support with placement arrangements for students with a disability. Initial guidance is provided by the university’s Disability and SpLD Team.

Students must attend the placement allocated by the university and are not permitted to arrange or source their own. Any student who undertakes a self-sourced placement will be considered to have failed the placement requirements of their course. This will result in the need to repeat the placement in the following academic year.

Students may be required to travel up to 90 minutes one way to attend their placement. This travel time is calculated from the nearest of the following: the student’s campus base, home address, or term-time address. Students may choose to relocate for the duration of their placement or travel from any of their registered addresses.

To ensure safety and wellbeing, students must not undertake travel that exceeds the 90-minute limit. Travel times are assessed using the University’s designated route planner, currently Google Maps.

In some cases, it may not be possible to allocate a placement within the 90-minute travel limit while still meeting the academic requirements of the course. Certain programmes require attendance at specific placement locations.

Barrow-in-Furness and Blackpool

Likely possible placement locations by campus (this is an indication only and not an exhaustive list):

• Lancaster campus: likely placement locations include; Lancaster, Morecambe, Preston, Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, Kendal, South Lakes, Barrow.
• Carlisle campus: likely placement locations include; North Cumbria: Carlisle, Penrith, Wigton, West Cumbria: Whitehaven, Workington, Cockermouth, Millom.

Likely placement locations by campus (this is an indication only and not an exhaustive list):

• Barrow campus: likely placement locations include; Furness peninsula, Millom, South Lakes, Kendal, Lancaster.
• Lancaster campus: likely placement locations include; Lancaster, Morecambe, Preston, Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, Kendal, South Lakes, Barrow, East Lancs.
• Carlisle campus: likely placement locations include; North Cumbria, West coast of Cumbria as far as Millom, Penrith, Shap, Central Lakes including Keswick, Allerdale.