‘That was awful! I’m not ready yet, am I?’ Is there such a thing as a Good Fail?

Abstract

Failing students in practice placement is frequently viewed as a negative and emotionally challenging experience for students and practice teachers and, as such, a situation to be avoided. In this article the notion that failing is the ‘right thing to do’ is explored from the perspective of Senior Agency based Practice Educator and a University Course Director for Practice Learning and from their experience of supporting both students and practice educators in the process.

Reasons for failure are considered and the concept of ‘reluctance to fail ‘is explored in the context of the expectations of assessment of practice. We argue that there is such a thing as a ‘good fail’ and that Social Work educators need to support the positive challenges of rigorous assessment rather than focus on the uncomfortable ‘feelings’ surrounding the notion of failure.

Practice educators have an important gate keeping function which needs recognition in the process of assessing readiness to practise. We suggest that not only do practice educators and tutors need to embrace a fail recommendation as justifiable but also that students themselves are able to recognise a lack of readiness to practise and can acknowledge a sense of’ relief’ in a fail outcome.