The Quality of an Avon Tyrrell Apprenticeship

Many businesses today see Apprenticeships as an economically driven opportunity to expand their business. 

We at Avon Tyrrell, as part of the National Charity UK Youth, place huge value on Apprenticeships as a way to provide training to assist young people with hands on experience in a sector of interest; helping young people experience, learn and develop.

Learn to work as a team in the outdoor environment.

Our aim is to equip our apprentices not only with work based experience and a formal NVQ, but with high quality awards and qualifications from governing bodies that they can then take away and use in their future career. Suffice to say in our experience not all outdoor centres feel or do the same.

As a youth charity, we want to make a difference to the lives of young people.  All of our apprentices are 18-25 and are either on a Level 2 (Intermediate) or Level 3 (Advanced) Apprenticeship.  As part of our selection process we select apprentices from a variety of backgrounds who, we believe, will benefit most from the opportunity and who have a passion to work in our sector.  Our aim is to increase engagement with education and training, reducing the number of young people who are not in employment, education or training.

Our outdoor apprentices, much like many others, are not always the strongest academically, but have a keen interest to further invest in learning through practical training and hands on experience, so they can work and demonstrate their strengths and ‘earn whilst they learn’.

Take part in discussions.

From our experience the quality of outdoor apprenticeships varies considerably, lacking continuity with the worst on offer simply drawing down the funding and only providing the national minimum apprenticeship wage with no additional benefits.  As a result of this they then get tied into an organisation as they don’t hold nationally recognised qualifications and are only trained in house. Their ‘qualifications’ don’t mean anything elsewhere, making it harder for them to leave and further their careers.

Despite guidelines regarding the qualifications that should be provided as part of an outdoor apprenticeship a number of centres take advantage of this and substitute top quality national qualifications with the cheapest most cost effective option, often not related to the outdoors such as a Food Hygiene Certificate, or specialised qualifications such as powerboat qualifications which are not widely used across all centres.

This then has a detrimental effect on their ability to pursue a career in the outdoor industry because:

•  Once you have done an apprenticeship at a certain level, you cannot do it again leaving them with very limited options.
• They cannot get a seasonal or advanced apprenticeship as they don’t hold the expected level of industry qualifications.
• They can’t re-do their year as it won’t be government funded any more
• Self - Funding qualifications, can be expensive and time consuming

Present work from your portfolio.

Although the cost for us to train our apprentices is more than the income from the government, we believe in investing into the young people and providing them with a solid career path.

  

On top of this we know that we are then delivery a high quality of service to the groups and young people that visit us at Avon Tyrrell.

So, what do they do…?

NVQ 2’s are typically in their first year in the industry with little to no experience and their 12 months with us is spent attending NGB (National Governing Body) Courses, in house training, developing their college portfolio and shadowing sessions until they are ready for sign offs, to then lead and deliver sessions alone to a high standard.

The foundation skills developed in year one enables the intermediate apprentices to only work with certain youth groups, primary school visits, friends and family groups and children visiting on fundays/parties. In and around sessions, the apprentices are working around site doing safety checks, repairs and upgrades to equipment and assisting maintenance where needed. We also put our apprentices into PODS’ with senior instructors so that we can offer additional support, training and mentoring where needed.

  

Lead on outdoor sessions providing learning outcomes.

Many of our first year apprentices have the opportunity to stay on and complete an NVQ 3 with further training and development in areas of individual interest and opportunities to work with more demanding groups such as Princes Trust and NCS. Whilst we are not always able to provide this to everyone, the qualifications gained during their NVQ2 gives them strong opportunities for employment elsewhere.

We are extremely proud to say that the apprentices who have completed their programmes with us, have successfully moved on to some very respectable jobs within the industry, including; Senior instructors, managers and trainers, experts in selling outdoor equipment, establishing their own outdoor businesses, working with challenging young people and being school teachers - the list goes on! The point is that apprenticeships are a fantastic opportunity to establish a future career path and the quality of the apprenticeship schemes that we provide really holds our employees in high regard within the outdoor industry and demonstrates the work that we do for young people as part of the National Charity UK Youth.

What they get from their apprenticeships with us.

NVQ 2			NVQ 3
NGB Qualifications	In House Qualifications	College Portfolio	NGB Qualifications	In House Training	College Portfolio	Additional Responsibilities
First Aid at Work	Raft Building/Pioneering	Functional skills Level 1 in English and Maths	ERCA Rescue	Abseiling	Functional skills Level 2 in English and Maths	Take on overseeing an activity base
ERCA High and Low Ropes Instructor	Environmental Activities – Night Walks, Bushcraft, Shelter Building	Level 2 award in employment awareness in active leisure and learning	ERCA Zip Wire	Advanced Soft Skills	Level 3 award employment awareness in active leisure and learning	Become positive role models for new staff
BCU 2 Star	Safety Checks	Level 2 NVQ in active leisure learning and wellbeing operational services	Outdoor Leader		Level 3 BTEC in skills and activities for sport and leisure (outdoor education)	Provide assistance with additional training and support for new staff.
BCU Foundation Safety and Rescue	Fundays	Level 2 certificate in leisure operations	*CWA (Climbing Wall Award)		Level 3 NVQ diploma in outdoor programmes- outdoor recreation
BCU UKCC Level 1 Paddle sport Coach	Child Protection and Safeguarding		*BCU 3 Star/s
RLSS National Pool Lifeguard (NPLQ)	Pool Water Testing		* BCU UKCC Level 2 Paddlesport Coach
NICAS Level 1 and 2 Climbing Awards	Adventure Challenge Course		* British Cycling Level 1 (or 2) Mountain Bike Leader
	Inclusion and Disability Awareness		* Bushcraft and Forest Schools Qualifications
	Soft Skills

We also offer additional apprenticeships across the centre as we believe young people should sit at the heart of what we do.

To find out more about a day in the life of an apprentice please watch this short YouTube clip written, directed and acted by one of our learning pods earlier this month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AegBevxkgeo 

If you have any thoughts on the subject, please feel free to comment.

Thanks

Avon Tyrrell