Parent and Student Guide to Apprenticeships

What’s going on?

It’s National Apprenticeship Week and we are spending the week talking all things apprentice.

Apprentice Awards

We are starting off the week with a range of awards. One award will be announced each day to celebrate our apprentice student’s success.

Talks for Parents and Learners

Detailed information on apprenticeships offered at Farnborough can be found with an online talk on higher apprenticeships for parents and learners. Register your place here.

If a talk isn’t your style, then we have an Apprenticeship information evening on 8 February (9 February for construction courses) from 4 till 7pm. Register via the link here.

The Apprenticeship Resource Hub

Some exciting news as we are launching a new section to the website, the Apprenticeship Resource Hub. This will give up to date information of apprenticeships and current available vacancies.

Instagram Takeover

Lastly is the Instagram takeover, any questions about apprenticeships ask away on at www.instagram.com/farnboroughgram. for our ‘Ask any question’ apprenticeship Q & A all week long.

You can of course email any questions you have to info@farn-ct.ac.uk too

What are apprenticeships?

Apprenticeships are a form of learning that are industry based by gaining experience working for an employer and learning skills on the job. The qualification received at the end of the apprenticeship is earned through classwork relating to the job role.

They have existed in various stages since the Middle Ages. Originally an apprentice would shadow a master of their craft, they would learn the skills from them until they themselves were a master. During this time the apprentice would not get paid as the skill was deemed enough of a pay.

Since this was a long time ago the only skilled jobs were that of carpenters, blacksmiths, and seamstresses. While this is not the case anymore it is a large part of apprenticeship history causing people to assume it is still just for manual labour jobs and hairdressing.

This is not the case though with apprenticeships being available in many more career paths such as business management, catering, engineering, and IT technician to name a few. Apprenticeships focus on getting apprentice into the workforce as a qualified member, similar to the old way, but now have more of a focus on understanding. This is shown by the classwork accomplished alongside the apprenticeship.

Why celebrate it?

National Apprenticeship Week’s role is to raise awareness and show case the positive impact they have on both employer and apprentice alike.

They are a continually growing form of qualification with over 300,000 apprenticeships started in 2022 and over 2 million since 2015. A majority of these are an A level equivalent apprenticeship.

What’s the difference?

When applying or hearing about apprenticeships often the words higher, advanced or degree level are used but it can be confusing to understand what these relate to qualification wise. Apprenticeships are divided into four categories with each one having a slightly different name, intermediate, advanced, higher and degree. This can be especially confusing since qualifications are normally divided into seven levels.

The different apprentice levels are equivalent to:

Intermediate – Level 2 – GCSE

Advanced – Level 3 – A Level / T Level / BTEC

Higher – Level 4 and 5 – Degree

Degree – Level 6 and 7 – Masters

What the appeal?

One of the biggest appeals of apprenticeships is the ability to ‘earn while you learn’. Employers pay apprentices for their time and give the same benefits any other employee would have. Making it especially appealing to those who work full time and wish to up their current skill level without having to lose out on income.

To earn their qualification learners are required to spend 20% of their working hours in ‘off-site-training’. This is a more classroom-based environment that can take place at a college, university, or registered training provider to ensure the apprentice is learning valuable skills and knowledge for the role they are in.

So why pick an apprenticeship other than money while learning?

What is especially great about apprenticeships is that while they are in the role to learn the job, they get to experience what it is really like in industry. They are given the same experiences as a new employee would. Their own roles and responsibilities with a focus on learning the skills of the trade. Just because they are learning doesn’t mean they aren’t still working on the big projects.

There are many reasons why apprenticeships might be the better option for someone, but don’t just take it from us, we asked some of our former apprentices what it was like.

Millie, a hairdressing apprentice, said “In the Salon you have a much more hands on experience. I got to shampoo and interact with the clients which really boosted my confidence.

Then obviously you get that one day a week at college which was really focused on me and my training.

 I would 100% advise doing an apprenticeship because you get the best of both worlds”.

Ben, Production engineer, “I found out about the apprenticeship at a careers fair where the Airbus was looking for apprentices. I was lucky enough to have received the apprenticeship.

The thing I enjoyed the most was working as part of a team. We were working on green energy alternatives which is so cool to be a part of something like that for the future.

The things you learn on an apprenticeship are not necessarily things you would learn in university so I learned some very valuable skills that any employer would be happy to have”.

What we offer

Some of the apprenticeships areas offered here at Farnborough College of Technology and University Centre Farnborough are:

• Accounting
• Business and administration
• Care services
• Catering and hospitality
• Childcare and early years
• Construction
• Customer services
• Digital, IT and Games
• Education and teaching
• Engineering and manufacturing
• Hair and beauty
• Human Resources
• Marketing
• Transport, warehouse & logistics
• Vehicle maintenance

Browse Current Vacancies

You can view all of our Apprenticeship vacancies here. Do remember that new roles are being added all the time, so we recommend bookmarking the page to check for updates.

For information on apprentices visit Apprenticeships – Farnborough College of Technology (farn-ct.ac.uk)