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
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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 five-
year 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.

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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
29th 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 2nd October 2017

Reference submission deadline 29th November 2017

Application submission deadline 6th 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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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12. Appendix: Reference form

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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