South East and London (SEAL) Bursary Placements from September 2026

On this page

• SEAL Placement Allocation Process 2026–27
• Timeline for Placement Panel Process
• Information for Trainees
• Information for Placement Providers
• Appeals
• Applying for a placement outside of SEAL
• FOR NOREMID TEPS

SEAL Placement Allocation Process 2026–27

Each trainee undertaking a bursary placement will receive £25,704. An additional £500 per pledged bursary is available to each programme to support trainees with travel costs associated with home to placement travel.

Matching of new trainees to placements in Local Authorities (LAs) providing bursaries will be carried out by a Panel consisting of 4 Principal Educational Psychologists (PEPs) and members of the SEAL Consortium Executive Committee, on 13 May 2026. Given the wide geographical area in which placements are offered, trainees attending SEAL universities must apply for a placement within the region. 

*Bursary rate calculated in line with the Soulbury Pay Scale. This will increase next year (2027–28) in line with the rate at the time the pledge window opens. 

The deadlines for the 2026-2027 placement process (for placements starting in September 2026) are as follows:

• New bursaries pledged (deadline 21 April 2026).
• Continuing Year 3 placements (final deadline 21 April 2026). 

Timeline for Placement Panel Process

The SEAL placements timeline below summarises all aspects of the process and when they will occur this year.

Information for Trainees

All SEAL trainees from the UK will be asked to complete a placement preference form in order to express choices for the available placements, and to ask the panel to consider any relevant circumstances relating for example to medical conditions affecting any ability to drive that could impact on placement. The available placements will be circulated, together with information about whether use of a car/other independent means of transport for the placement is essential, desirable, etc. In all but a few inner city services, and for individuals who have a disability that precludes driving, Educational Psychology (EP) services in the UK are organised on the basis of car use by team members. There is an expectation of independent travel around schools and other sites on placement.

The Placement Panel will operate completely independently, matching trainee placements strictly in accordance with the published criteria and the information you provide in relation to them. You should refrain from making direct contact with PEPs about specific placements. There is no scope for lobbying of panel members, and any such communication, by you or on your behalf, with members of the Placement Panel would constitute unprofessional behaviour and trigger course disciplinary processes.

Please note that while every effort will be made by the panel to place TEPs in one of their preferred placements, there may be occasions where it is not possible, and a trainee may have a placement not listed in their choices. Should this be the case, the panel will make every effort to minimise the travel distance for the individual trainee.

Information for Placement Providers

In offering a bursary, Placement Providers are agreeing to the requirements of the Department for Education Practice Placement Partnership Framework and affirming that they can offer the range of experiences appropriate to the level of training, as well as appropriate supervision.

Matching of new trainees to placements in LAs providing bursaries will be carried out by a Panel of 4 PEPs, members of the SEAL Consortium Executive Committee, on 13 May 2026. The matching is carried out strictly on the published criteria, trainees are identified only by the code number assigned to them by the DfE. Placement Panel members have no knowledge about the trainee’s name, gender or the university where they are training. 

All placements requested are initially for ONE year. However, with trainee and placement provider agreement, and assuming funding is available for a bursary, the placement may continue into year 3. This arrangement does not apply to trainees from the University of Southampton, which operates a two placement model with trainees having one placement in Year 2 and a contrasting one in Year 3.

Contingency

In the event that a Local Authority is unable to fund a full bursary, the Chair of the SEAL Placement Panel will consider applications for joint bursaries funded by two Local Authorities. 

At the time of placement, the University/TEP will provide the placement provider with information on the TEP’s development needs and concerns about any aspect of training. Communication will be with the PEP and the nominated supervisor.

Appeals

The placement panel endeavour to do the very best job in matching trainees to placement and every year, as the Chair’s report and trainee report attest, and generally achieve a good result. Inevitably, in a process such as this, some trainees will be allocated placements further from home than they consider ideal. 

After you find out about your placement on 20 May, a short period is left before we inform LAs on 27 May. This period is there to allow checking for any errors that may have occurred during the allocation process. The types of error considered relate to the following 2 areas: 

1. A substantive error – where special circumstances notified by a trainee appear to have been overlooked-e.g. a trainee with young children has been allocated to a placement over one hour travel time from home for which they did not express a preference.
2. A clerical error – where a trainee has been allocated a placement very far from the home address given (e.g. one and a half hours travel time) and in a completely different geographical area to any for which a preference was expressed (e.g. a trainee is allocated Croydon when they have in fact expressed a preference for Camden).

The SEAL consortium lead will consider suspected clerical errors and will refer to the chair of the Panel any suspected substantive errors. Except in the case of an error having occurred in the allocation process, the decision of the Panel is final. Correspondence about suspected errors will only be accepted from programme directors, not individual trainees. Initial contact should therefore be made with your Programme Director.

Applying for a placement outside of SEAL

Please note, SEAL trainees interested in a NOREMID-SW (North, East, Midlands & South West) placement will still be required to submit a SEAL placement preference form and go through the SEAL placement panel process.

Only in exceptional circumstances will it be possible for SEAL trainees to be placed within NOREMID-SW regions. Specific regional placements are not guaranteed. The remaining placements available to SEAL trainees will be published after all NOREMID-SW trainees have been placed shortly after 20 May. If you have exceptional circumstances which align with the criteria listed on the SEAL placement preference form and would like to be notified of the remaining available NOREMID-SW placements, please notify your Programme Director by email at the point of submitting your placement preference form. Note, our commitment is to place SEAL trainees within the SEAL region, and therefore these requests will only be considered if there is a justifiable cause for placement outside of SEAL. SEAL trainees should note that accepting the offer of a NOREMID-SW placement means that they will receive the agreed NOREMID-SW bursary.

Placement choice would need to be confirmed by 1 May, in writing to alice.tucker@ucl.ac.uk and the Programme Director. The Trainee EP Preference Form and TEP progression form (Appendices 2 and 3) will need to be completed and submitted. PEPs will be notified soon after. 

FOR NOREMID TEPS

Please note: these bursaried placements are only available to UK trainees, not international trainees.

NOREMIDSW trainees who wish to apply for a SEAL placement may do so by downloading the applicable placement preference form here. Placement preference forms need to be sent to trainees’ own Programme Director, who then needs to collate these into a single document and send them by 1 May 5pm to alice.tucker@ucl.ac.uk, cc s.f.wright@soton.ac.uk. Please ensure that any special considerations (as detailed on the form) are validated by the programme director.

Where there is a clear fit, NOREMIDSW trainees will be allocated a SEAL placement on 13 May at the panel. Relevant NOREMIDSW programme directors will be notified about the allocated placements a week AFTER the panel has met. Any remaining SEAL placements will also be offered to NOREMIDSW via Caroline Bond Caroline.Bond@manchester.ac.uk) on 20 May. This is to allow for any errors in the original SEAL allocations to be dealt with before the agreed allocations and remaining placements are handed over to NOREMIDSW. Individual trainees (with a copy to their PD) need to notify alice.tucker@ucl.ac.uk, cc s.f.wright@soton.ac.uk of their intention to accept these placements by 27 May at the latest. Any placements not confirmed by this time will be assumed not to be taken up and PEPs will be notified accordingly.

NOREMIDSW trainees should note that accepting the offer of a placement means that they will receive the agreed SEAL bursary of £26,204. Once a placement has been confirmed by UCL, the HEI will need to make arrangements to invoice the individual Local Authorities where their trainee(s) is placed. This is essential as Southampton does not hold begin invoicing LAs until allocation has been agreed at panel and then will only invoice for SEAL trainees. 

It should also be noted that for NOREMIDSW trainees who have a SEEL bursary in Year 2, the responsibility for invoicing for the continuing Year 3 bursary falls to the host university.

In applying for a SEAL placement, NOREMIDSW trainees should be aware that inner London placements are almost always filled by SEAL trainees and any requests for these would be extremely unlikely to be fulfilled.