Apprenticeships in England
The Benefits of Apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships are suitable for any sector, from construction to health and social care.
Benefit from staff development relevant to your organisation and ensure employees are building skills and knowledge directly related to their job.
Apprenticeships can be used to cost-effectively train new staff or upskill existing staff – boost the skills in your workforce and see productivity improve whilst creating a learning culture and a socially responsible business that seeks to reduce local unemployment.
Apprenticeships are training programmes lasting between 12 and 30 months providing the apprentice with practical, on-the-job experience and qualifications and providing you with loyal employees to fill a skills gap cost-effectively or upskill your current staff. Current employees build skills in mentoring, training, and management.
Every apprenticeship is made up of Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours and in some cases the main chosen NVQ certificate, along with any English and Maths as appropriate if delegates do not already have proxy via previous qualifications. Delegates will receive an Apprenticeship certificate at the close, therefore giving up to 4 new certificates for CVs and your internal records.
There is a requirement from the employer to commit to the apprenticeship program and being involved in the review process is critical, and for learners to manage their time to complete the work that we set, but we can capture this through lots of methods, not just written work. WE WILL NEED FEEDBACK AND PARTICIPATION FROM YOU AS THE EMPLOYER AT EVERY REVIEW-EVERY 10 WEEKS.
We will also need to visit the learner whilst working onsite to carry out observations of working practice where the on-site evidence of working skills and behaviours will be captured by our assessment team through the use of photographs or video evidence, and we can provide one to one assistance for the knowledge or functional skills if needed.
As part of the apprenticeship programme the learner will be required to attend planned off-the-job training classroom sessions away from their day-to-day tasks. This will be to deliver new knowledge and skills to the learner. The requirement to attend will depend on the programme they undertake and whether they need support to achieve their functional skills.
Having planned your employee’s learning programme we will work together to deliver the training that is required to develop the skills and help achieve their qualification. All of the training will take place within the workplace itself. This will typically involve current staff developing the learner’s skills through observing/shadowing others perform activities, practising themselves and learning from their supervisor. All of this will be completed with minimum disruption to rotas and classes for knowledge can be conducted at your offices so no need for travel or ‘college’ days at all.
You may wish to carry out some or all of the training within the company, but we also provide off-the-job training sessions to support what the apprentice is learning new skills, knowledge, and behaviours in the workplace. We will agree when and where this will take place when developing the learning programme to achieve the correct on and off the job guided learning hours correlation.
Finally, the apprenticeship will culminate in a process known as EPA (End Point Assessment).
Once you as the employer, the learner and us as the provider, are confident that all of the elements of the apprenticeship have been achieved, the EPA assessor will visit to confirm our decision. The purpose of the end point assessment (EPA) is to test that an apprentice is fully capable of doing their job before they receive their apprenticeship certificate. It also helps to demonstrate that what an apprentice has learned can be applied in the real world.
The synoptic EPA has become a core feature of new apprenticeship standards because it assesses the apprentice’s performance across the whole standard rather than for individual tasks.
There are a range of assessment methods including:
- practical assessment
- interview
- project
- written and/or multiple-choice tests.
- presentation or sales pitch
The apprentice must be assessed by a minimum of 2 different assessments methods and the methods used will be the ones most relevant to the job.
After the EPA, the apprenticeship is graded as a pass, merit or distinction. Clear grading descriptors are set out the requirements for each grade.
Apprentices are aged 16 or over and combine working with studying to gain job-specific skills and knowledge. Training is integrated into the workweek minimising disruption and tailored to the job role and requirements.
Apprentices can be new or current employees.
Apprentices must be paid at least the minimum apprenticeship wage.
Your apprentice must:
- work with experienced staff
- learn job-specific skills.
- study during their working week (for example, at a college or training organisation)
- Undertake 20% formal off-the-job training.
- Be provided with the opportunity to practise new skills in a real work environment.
Off-the-job training
All apprenticeships must include 20% off-the-job training to reinforce practical, work-based learning with theory. It’s training received by the apprentice, during the apprentice’s regular working hours, for the purpose of achieving their apprenticeship. Contact us to find out more about what this entails and how it is implemented. As an experienced national training provider, our sector competence, expertise and dedication to providing positive outcomes means we are best placed to provide apprenticeships for your business needs across a wide variety of departments within your organisation.
We will undertake an organisational needs analysis – Working alongside you, we will jointly identify current training opportunities and facilitate future training needs. We provide an Apprenticeship Recruitment Service where we manage vacancies and the recruitment process in line with your requirements.
We will provide you with a Service Level Agreement and agree on the overall cost of each apprenticeship. The total price agreed between the employer and provider as the cost to the provider for delivery of the apprenticeship programme, to calculate government funding for apprenticeship programmes and to monitor apprenticeship programme costs.
Budget Announcement: Up to £4,000 incentive for all new apprentice hires
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak announced in the Budget that the Government is doubling the incentive payment for employers who take on new apprentices.
What does this mean? As an employer, if you recruit an apprentice (anyone over the age of 16) you will receive a payment of £3,000 for each NEW apprentice hired. If you take on a new apprentice aged 16-18 or someone under 25 with an Education, Health and Care Plan you will also receive the existing £1,000 bonus together with the new incentive totalling £4,000. The new incentive payments for Apprenticeships apply from 1 April 2021 until 21 September 2021.
Government guidance can be found by clicking here.
Click here to access The Citizens Advice website.
Click here to visit the ACAS website.
