COMMENT

EDITORIAL BOARD Irene Anderson, Principal Lecturer and Reader in Learning and Teaching in Healthcare Practice, University of Her tfordshire Steve Ashurst, Critical Care Nurse Lecturer, Maelor Hospital, Wrexham Christopher Barber, Freelance Lecturer and Writer Jacqueline Boulton, Lecturer in Adult Nursing, Faculty Lead for student mobility, electives and global health, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifer y & Palliative Care, King’s College London Beverley Brathwaite, Senior lecturer University of Roehampton Nicholas Castle, Head of Professions/ Assistant Executive Director, Hamad Medical Corporation Ambulance Ser vice, Qatar Jothi Clara J Micheal, Group Director – Nursing, Global Hospitals Group, India Emma Collins, Nurse Consultant, Sexual Health In Plymouth, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust Alison Coull, Lecturer at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh Angela Grainger, Senior Lecturer, BPP University Barr y Hill, Assistant Professor of Nursing and Critical Care, Nor thumbria University Helen Holder, Senior Lecturer, Nursing Studies, Birmingham City University Mina Karamshi, Specialist Sister in Radiology, Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead Felicia Kwaku, Associate Director of Nursing/Senior Head of Nursing Acute Speciality Medicine, Kings Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Chair Chief Nursing Officer & Chief Midwifer y Officer’s Black Minority Ethnic Strategic Advisor y Group,NHS England Jacqueline Leigh, Professor and Director of Nursing and Midwifer y Education, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk John McKinnon, Senior Lecturer, School of Health and Social Care, University of Lincoln Aby Mitchell, Senior Lecturer in Nursing Education, King’s College London Joy Notter, Professor, Birmingham City University & Saxion University of Applied Science, Netherlands Hilar y Paniagua, Principal Lecturer/Head of Doctoral Studies Faculty of Health & Well Being at the University of Wolverhampton Ian Peate, Programme Director University Glasgow Singapore Jo Rixon, Head of Nursing (Croydon), University of Roehampton Kendra Schneller, Nurse Practitioner, Health Inclusion Team – Vulnerable Adults and Prevention Ser vices, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust John Tingle, Lecturer in Law, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham Geoffrey Walker, Matron for Medicine, Cardiology and Specialist Nursing Ser vices Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Jamie Waterall, Deputy Chief Public Health Nurse, Office for Health Improvement & Disparities; Honorar y Professor, University of Nottingham Cate Wood, Senior Lecturer, University of Winchester

Learning the rules of the game: how health and social care students learn to learn Kate H Knight (K.Knight@Chester.ac.uk), Karen Wright, Victoria Whaley, Debbie Roberts, Rob Monks, Juliet Borwell, Amanda Garrow, Jacqueline Leigh, Amanda Kenny and Rebecca Bailey-McHale

Practice placements are essential to pre-registration nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, providing theoretical underpinning and developing professional identity. Professional bodies clearly stipulate the amount of practice required. For example, in the UK, it is 50% of the preregistered nursing programme (Health and Care Professions Council, 2018; Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2018; Social Work England, 2021).

Wenger’s (1998) classic work descr ibes the concept of practice as:

‘Including both the explicit and the tacit … what is said and what is left unsaid, what is represented and what is assumed, subtle cues, untold rules of thumb; most of which may never be articulated, yet they are unmistakable signs of membership of the community of practice.’

Wenger, 1998: 47

This highlights the silences – the unwritten and implicit rules of the game. Tacit knowing has gained recognition as a vital source of knowledge that informs clinical decision-making. It is therefore questionable how we capture and transfer tacit knowledge so that lear ners are able to ‘play the game’.

Practice supervisors influence students’ accountability for lear ning and close the gap between theory and practice, reinforcing the need for the entire team to value practice lear ning (Henderson and Eaton, 2013).The complexities of lear ning have tended to be discussed in terms of br idging the theory-to-practice gap (Rolfe, 1996), with less emphasis having been placed on how students lear n within the practice setting. An appreciation of the pedagogy of practice lear ning can help academics and practice supervisors to support students in translating practice exper iences into meaningful lear ning. Careful scaffolding of support from expert ‘others’ is required to enhance the translation of lear ning into practice, and this should commence dur ing preparation-for-practice sessions in university settings.

Preparation for practice Preparation for practice fosters increased autonomy (Repsha et al, 2020), and elicits deep lear ning, often or iginating from uncomfortable interactions that require the examination of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Cr itical reflection before, dur ing and after practice exper iences using careful

Kate H Knight, Head of Practice Learning, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society, University of Chester, Chester Karen Wright, Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, University of Central Lancashire, Preston Victoria Whaley, Deputy Director, Practice Learning, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society, University of Chester, Chester Debbie Roberts, Director of Simulation, Faculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford Rob Monks, Associated Head of Adult Nursing and Primar y Care, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Medicine, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk

Juliet Borwell, Programme Lead for Practice Learning, Health Education England (South East), Winchester Amanda Garrow, Programme Lead – MSc Pre-Registration Nursing, School of Nursing and Allied Health, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Jacqueline Leigh, Professor and Director of Nursing and Midwifer y Education, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Medicine, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk Amanda Kenny, Professor Emerita, La Trobe University, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, and Visiting Professor, University of Lincoln, Lincoln Rebecca Bailey-McHale, Deputy Head of Practice Learning, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Society, University of Chester, Chester td

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British Journal of Nursing, 2023, Vol 32, No 9