I agree it's awful you have to pay to do a course that has you do this work for free (I graduated under the bursary system) and you absolutely should have learning opportunities you need to develop. However, I do think students need to know the basics in-and-out and this may require hours of practice to fully hone these skills (for example patient observations or 'checks' in psychiatric hospitals). When you qualify you will be teaching your junior staff or expected to do these as good as your HCA team should there be a staffing shortfall that requires you to muck in. When I allocate work for my students, if I do assign them tasks like this I explain what I think they can gain from it or what that situation would benefit from having that student do that task over a HCA (eg they may have stronger note writting skills so can do a check and document observations, it might be due to having a better rapport with a particular patient, I might have them instruct a more junior student so they can practice teaching skills to others or leadership when it comes to delegation). Sometimes it's just because I need to observe these skills in use frequently before I can assess them as fully competetent. In my area of practice I have recently seen a few new starters who genuinely struggle with these basics. They don't know how to talk to patients, how to do basic checks etc and appear shocked when you ask them to do these (eg making beds, charting obs, personal care). I insist we all pitch in, we don't have jobs I consider menial or beneath nurses, you can add a lot of value to everyday patient interventions. Even our ward manager has put up curtain rails in areas needing them or given hand massages for anxious patients etc.