Sheffield DA Occupational Therapy

This is the profession specific page for apprentices joining the Degree Apprenticeship BSc (Hons) Occupational therapy course. This page will give you more information about preparing for Occupational Therapy specifically. 

Course calendar

March 2026 starters

This is the course calendar for the first year of your course for March 2026 starters 

Induction information with times and rooms will be sent nearer the start date. Once you have enrolled you will receive an online teaching and assessment calendar.

Learning and teaching

The Occupational therapy apprenticeship is a blended learning course which means that you receive a mixture of online live (taught) sessions, online activities (non-taught) and face-to-face on campus taught sessions. These can be a mixture of lectures, seminars and practicals.

You can wear any clothing for online sessions, but professional 'netiquette' is expected. This requires that cameras are switched on during sessions (where appropriate) to encourage active participation and engagement.

Placements

You will have blocks of placement learning throughout your course. Your employer is responsible for sourcing all of your placements and ensuring that you have completed all of the mandatory immunisations and training including online and practical. The SHU placement team will complete quality assurance checks to ensure all placements are safe and quality learning opportunities. You must not source placements yourself, they have to be sourced and allocated through your employer (this may be a central placement learning lead/facilitator within your organisation). We encourage you such achieve a broad range of experiences such as clinical, leadership, education and research placements. All placements will be assessed as pass or fail. 

Please see a link to the Degree Apprenticeship Placement website for more specific information

Professional body

This link takes you to the Royal College of OT who are our professional body. You may already be a member and familiar with this, but please take the time to look at the expectations and support for students and apprentice learners.

This link takes you to the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) guidance on conduct and behaviour for learners. HCPC has a useful hub for learners to find out more about their work.

The Royal College has a useful youtube channel where you can find out about the profession, you can find this on their website. You can join RCOT as a learner, this does come at a cost, check with your employer if they are supporting colleagues and or learners with the cost.

Useful activities to complete/observe before starting the course:

• Observe a new patient assessment

• Collect, without client names, staff names or logo's any occupational therapy assessments you come across at work

• Find out about/shadow the role of other professions who may be in  your workplace e.g OT, SALT, dietician, nurse

• Find out about some information about the role of an OT working within physical health in acute and community settings. What might be their role?

• Find out about some information about the role of an OT working within mental health in acute and community settings. What might be their role?

• Find out about what other environments/settings an OT could work within and what their role might be e.g councils, schools, prison

• Ask occupational therapy colleagues if you can read OTNews

Course Handbook

You can find this below and this document contains relevant information about the programme, expectations, contact details and basic information about the modules you will be studying. 

Course Handbook OT DA