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This series of six articles is inspired by themes arising from the Royal College of Midwives' state of midwifery education report. The series explores the current landscape and challenges in educating the future midwifery workforce, particularly those that relate to the higher education workforce. This penultimate article examines the interplay between the practice and academic environments and the impact this has on both students and staff alike, particularly in the wake of changing standards for student supervision. The article explores whether the nature of being an educator in a health field such as midwifery is unique because of the need to support students through placement challenges when there are limitations on what higher education institutions can realistically influence. It also examines the 'extra' responsibilities put on midwifery education staff to support students by way of 'academic assessor' roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This series of six articles is inspired by themes arising from the Royal College of Midwives State of Midwifery Education report. The series explores the current landscape and challenges in educating the future midwifery workforce, particularly those that pertain to the higher education workforce. This third article highlights the lack of global majority midwifery academics, and charts the decisions and experiences of global majority applicants and students in midwifery higher education. The barriers these students face include systemic and individual racism. These experiences likely impact global majority midwives choosing academic careers, yet greater diversity and representation is needed in the education workforce. This article explores how this might be achieved by examining sources of systemic racism and how to decolonise midwifery curricula in order to tackle inequality not just for educators and professionals, but for women in midwifery care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first article in a series of six inspired by themes arising from the Royal College of Midwives' State of Midwifery Education report. These articles will explore the current landscape and challenges in educating the future midwifery workforce, particularly those that pertain to the higher education workforce. This first article introduces the concept of a profession using sociological theories. It considers who we are individually, as authors, academics and midwives, and collectively considers our identity as a profession alongside those whom we teach. The aim is to ensure that staff and students are supported to succeed and thrive. Education can transform lives, so that current and future midwives can make a difference in providing safe, compassionate care for service users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grading of practice has been incorporated into the Nursing and Midwifery Council's midwifery education standards since 2009. The literature identifies that grading practice can be fraught with challenges not least related to subjectivity, inconsistency, lack of transparency and grade inflation. An established group of UK-wide lead midwife educators recognised these challenges and through completing a three-phase project, developed an evidence-based practice assessment toolkit which aims to facilitate consistent, robust and objective grading of student practice. It is suggested that this toolkit may be useful to those developing practice assessment documentation or writing evidence to reflect a student's progress and achievement in practice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grading of practice is a mandatory element of programmes leading to registration as a midwife in the United Kingdom, required by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. This validates the importance of practice by placing it on an equal level with academic work, contributing to degree classification. This paper discusses a scoping project undertaken by the Lead Midwives for Education group across the 55 Higher Education Institutions in the United Kingdom which deliver pre-registration midwifery programmes. A questionnaire was circulated and practice tools shared, enabling exploration of the application of the standards and collation of the views of the Lead Midwives. Timing and individuals involved in practice assessment varied as did the components and the credit weighting applied to practice modules. Sign-off mentor confidence in awarding a range of grades had increased over time, and mentors seemed positive about the value given to practice and their role as professional gatekeepers. Grading was generally felt to be more robust and meaningful than pass/refer. It also appeared that practice grading may contribute to an enhanced student academic profile. A set of guiding principles is being developed with the purpose of enhancing consistency of the application of the professional standards across the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]