Apprenticeships Explained

How Apprenticeships Can Benefit Your Organisation?

  • Employing apprentices leads to lower overall training and recruitment costs and makes good business sense.
  • Apprentices can help grow your business and help solve recruitment challenges
  • Apprentices are loyal to the organisations that invest in them, therefore improving staff retention rates.
  • Employing apprentices helps develop a motivated, skilled and qualified workforce, improving service, morale and productivity.
  • Mentoring and training apprentices, enables senior staff to pass on their knowledge and experience.
  • Apprenticeship standards are more job role specific than any other type of learning, therefore more relevant to your business needs.

Often, the talent you seek is already available within your existing workforce and you don’t always need to look outside of your organisation. Apprenticeships can be offered to your workforce to encourage them to up-skill or retrain, realising their full potential and ultimately boosting your business.

Who are apprenticeships for?

Apprenticeships can be applied for by Individuals over the age of 16, living in England and not in full time education. Employers can offer apprenticeships to new entrants or use them to grow their own talent from among current employees.

What is an apprenticeship?

An apprenticeship is a real job with training. Individuals earn while they learn, gaining valuable skills, knowledge and behaviours in a specific job role.  Businesses in all industry sectors in England can either recruit apprentices or utilise apprenticeships to up-skill or retrain existing employees. Depending on the level and job role, apprenticeships can take from 12 months to 5 years. 

How do apprenticeships work?

Dynamic Training will work closely with you to ensure that the apprenticeship you offer is the most appropriate for the individual’s job role. The apprenticeship programme is work based with the support of an in-house mentor and a Dynamic Training Skills & Development Coach.

On programme

The apprentice will be allocated a Dynamic Training Skills & Development Coach who will support and guide them for the duration of their apprenticeship. Within 2 - 3 weeks of the apprenticeship induction, their Skills & Development Coach will meet with the apprentice and their line manager in the workplace to plan the 20% off the job activity and complete the individual learning plan.

An apprentice will require regular meetings with their Skills & Development Coach who will plan to stretch and challenge the apprentice’s learning. The apprentice will also be learning and developing new skills/ competencies and knowledge in the workplace that need to meet the requirements of the apprenticeship standard.

The apprenticeship programme will be delivered as blended learning. Blended learning is a combination of both online and face to face delivery. The apprentice will need to have good internet access and a suitable device such as a smart phone, laptop, or tablet to work on. Microsoft Teams is used for coaching sessions and ZOOM is currently used for taught sessions. Please ensure that your apprentice has access to ZOOM and Microsoft Teams and is permitted to use these applications in order to complete their training.

During the on programme phase of an apprenticeship, an apprentice must achieve 20% off the job training, study for a qualification (if one is included in their apprenticeship) and achieve English, maths (and in some cases ICT) Functional Skills qualifications, if not already held.

Assessment Gateway

Upon completion of the apprenticeship programme, the apprentice will go through gateway. This is a 3 way meeting with the apprentice, their line manager, and the Skills & Development Coach, confirming the mandatory aspects of the apprenticeship have been completed and the apprentice is ready to undertake the end point assessment phase of the apprenticeship with the independent End Point Assessment Organisation.

End Point Assessment

The End Point Assessment phase of an apprenticeship is typically 6 - 12 weeks following gateway. The date for the End Point Assessment is booked and the apprentice completes the necessary activities to ensure the End Point Assessment can be undertaken.

The End Point Assessment will incorporate different assessment components such as, interview, observation, presentation, multiple choice questions, scenario based questions. The assessment components will vary, depending on the apprenticeship the apprentice is undertaking. The independent assessor will determine the overall grade. An apprentice can be graded: fail, pass, merit or distinction.

Employer responsibilities

Employers are responsible for paying their apprentice’s salary and issuing their contract of employment. Apprentices must be inducted into their role and provided on-the-job training.

By employing an apprentice, employers have to meet the following requirements:

  • An Apprenticeship Agreement between the employer and the apprentice must be in place
  • A Commitment statement is to be completed by an employer, the apprentice and Dynamic Training
  • An apprentice should be paid the correct rate of pay for their age. The current rate (April 2023) is £5.28 per hour for an apprentice aged 16 - 18 or for those 19 and over, in the first year of their apprenticeship. For apprentices aged 19 and over who have completed their first year, the National Minimum Wage for their age applies. However, as employers have to compete to attract an apprentice, many employers choose to pay more. 
  • The minimum duration of an apprenticeship (12 months) is based on an apprentice being employed for at least 30 hours per week. By exception, where the individual’s circumstances or the nature of employment in a given sector make this impossible, then an absolute minimum of 16 hours per week must be met. For apprentices working less than 30 hours a week, the duration of the apprenticeship must be extended to account for this. 
  • All apprentices must receive the same benefits as other employees.

Government Incentives

Employers are not required to pay National Insurance Contributions for apprentices under the age of 25 on earnings below the higher tax rate of £43,000 a year.

If your organisation has less than 50 employees, it could be eligible for additional funding and support as the government will pay 100% of your training costs for employing an apprentice who is aged 16 to 18, or an apprentice aged 19 to 24 who is a care leaver or has an EHCP. 

Currently all employers regardless of size, will receive £1,000 for taking on an apprentice who is aged 16 to 18 years old, is under 25 with an education, health and care plan or has been in the care of their local authority. 

Apprentice recruitment

Dynamic Training can assist you with the advertising and recruitment of prospective apprentices for your business. We have substantial experience in finding the right candidates for the job.  We offer three packages to assist you in your apprenticeship recruitment, bronze (free), silver and gold (which are additional in cost to the apprenticeship training).

 

Next Steps

Find out more about the programme please feel free to contact us via:

Tel: 0208 6077850 or

Email: hello@dynamictraining.org.uk

Online Enquiry form: Click here

 

For a comprehensive insight into apprenticeships, please download a pdf copy of our employer handbook by clicking on the image below

  

For a comprehensive insight into the learner journey, please download a pdf copy by clicking the image below

  

For an overview of the apprenticeships we offer, please download a pdf copy by clicking the image below