Leaving well is a skill almost nobody is taught. A placement that ends with a vague wave at the door is half-finished work.

Today you are applying what you already know about workplace engagement to the close itself. That means four practical beats: a specific thank-you within twenty-four hours, contacts exchanged, sign-off completed, and a reference asked for now while they still remember you.

Before you write anything, commit to five true-or-false calls about how a placement should end. Answer from what you honestly believe right now. You will use these answers when you draft your own close later in the lesson.

Read Aoife's sample closing email to her placement supervisor. Label each marked stretch: specific learning, too vague, reference ask, contact exchange, or weak tone. When the class is ready, reveal the model and notice where you disagreed. The labels you trust become the checklist for your own Placement Close document in Strand 2.2.

Read this short fictionalised case, then produce your own Placement Close document in your Strand 2.2 folder. This artefact is Strand 2.2 evidence toward your Digital Portfolio and Portfolio in Action work.

Fictionalised case: Cian left without closing. Cian completed a three-day work-shadowing placement at a leisure centre in March. He got on well with the duty manager, Siobhán. On the last afternoon he said 'thanks, see you' at the desk and left. He did not send a message, did not swap numbers, and did not ask about a reference. The school sign-off sheet stayed in his bag unsigned until a teacher chased it a week later. In November Cian shortlists for a lifeguard traineeship. The form asks for a workplace referee who has seen him in the last year. He emails Siobhán out of the blue. She replies that she remembers a polite Transition Year student but cannot recall what he did on shift, and she is uncomfortable giving a detailed reference on that basis.

Use Cian's miss as the warning. Then write the close he should have sent — or your own. Include three parts: (1) the thank-you message as you would send it within twenty-four hours, naming one specific thing you learned; (2) who you will exchange contacts with, and how; (3) the reference request wording and the date you will send or said it. If your placement is still running, write as if today is the final day. If you do not yet have a live host, use the target organisation from your earlier Strand 2.2 placement plan or target-org note. Save the document as Placement Close before the summary.

Today you practised ending a placement the way a workplace actually notices.

• You took a position on five claims about thank-you timing, specificity, references, contacts and sign-off
• You annotated a sample closing email for specificity, tone, contact exchange and the reference ask
• You studied a weak close that cost a later reference
• You wrote your own Placement Close: thank-you, contacts and a dated reference request

Send the thank-you within twenty-four hours of leaving. Asking for a reference now is part of leaving well, not a favour you save for panic later.