Heartbeat: Apprentices celebrated in awards ceremony
January 15, 2020
The apprenticeship provider team hosted their second annual awards ceremony. It was a day of celebration as people from across our organisation came together to collect their awards after completing their apprenticeships.
Bethan Downing, Deputy People Director opened the ceremony. She commented: “As we change our workforce, it’s important that our people can develop into roles they’d like to move into.”
This very much set the tone for the ceremony. Each apprentice had taken ownership of their development and was empowered by our organisation to do so.
The awards ceremony recognised apprentices in the following categories:
- Business and Administration Level 2
- Customer Service Practitioner • Level 2
- Health Care Support Worker Level 2
- Team Leader/Supervisor Level 3
To be considered for an apprenticeship certain eligibility criteria needed to be met. Where extra support was needed the apprenticeship provider team helped to upskill learners to improve and refresh their literacy and numeracy skills.
All training was delivered in house. As a registered apprenticeship provider within Sandwell and West Birmingham, the team act as trainers, assessors and coaches.
Together, they deliver apprenticeship standards across healthcare, business and administration, customer service and team leader programmes. They provided bespoke training and support to each apprentice throughout their learning journey.
This cohort exceeded all expectations. In particular, all the team leader and customer service practitioners passed with a distinction. It was the first time as a Trust we’d put learners through these two new apprenticeship standards.
Maxine Griffiths, Widening Participation Manager told Heartbeat how thrilled she was about this. “For us this was a first, extending our apprenticeship programme in this way had not been done before. Each learner put so much effort and dedication into their studies and achieving a distinction is wholeheartedly deserved.”
Since completing their apprenticeships, eight individuals have gone on to secure higher banded posts, become a nurse associate or move on to a Level 3 qualification.
Libby Marshall, Apprenticeship Coordinator added: “It’s important for us to recognise each individual as we’ve done here today at our awards ceremony. They’ve all worked so hard and should be proud of everything they’ve achieved. As a team, it brings us great pleasure knowing that we’ve helped each person grow personally and professionally. We look forward to seeing what great things they all achieve in their careers.”