Back in February, to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week we held our most successful open event in history, welcoming prospective apprentices to meet our team and partner employers.

We were supported by our partner employers Severfield, William Hare, Unison Ltd, Schneider Electric, McCain Foods and Ellis Patents, and the event was organised to provide the opportunity to explore our specialist learning facility, understand how apprenticeships work, speak to current apprentices to get real-life insight and learn more about Leadership & Management and Engineering & Manufacturing Apprenticeships.

47 individual visitors attended to consider apprenticeships as their next steps – with a total of 98 visitors including parents and guardians – record year for Derwent Training. As of 4th March, we have had eleven sign ups as a direct result of the event, with one of those already being confirmed with an apprenticeship.

Claire Gavaghan, CEO of Derwent Training said: ”National Apprenticeship Week is significant in the educational landscape. One of the identified barriers to people undertaking an apprenticeship is an awareness of the opportunity to do so. Therefore, it is important that every provider steps forward and promotes the apprenticeship route as a viable route into a training programme whilst employed. I am delighted that our event was so well attended by would-be apprentices as well as employers. Equally, it was pleasing to see many parents and guardians attend so they too can understand that starting a job and undertaking training does go hand-in-hand, and is a platform to a fulfilling career.”

Derwent Training recently launched its Leadership & Management apprenticeship which directly addresses a gap in education provision as detailed by the York and North Yorkshire LEP Business Board.