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Learning Provider for Technical Theatre Apprenticeship


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Hi!

 

We have recently taken on an apprentice in the school theatre, which is great. Extra hands are good.

 

However, we found out at the end of last week, that his learning provider has 'dropped' the course and South East Apprenticeship Company (SEAC (The company who arrange the learning providers)). SEAC have given THEMSELVES a deadline to find a new one. The deadline is tomorrow.

 

Now, I would very much like to keep the apprentice on. And he would very much like to stay and complete his NVQ or whatever it is he will get out of it.

 

Does anybody know of any learning providers or similar in the South East that would be able to help us rectify this situation?

 

Much appreciated,

 

Sam

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I don't mean to be rude - but an apprentice is NOT supposed to be an extra pair of hands, you are supposed to be training them to the specification set down by the awarding body who is linked to the Government funding for taking them on. As an educational establishment, I find it amazing that you do not even know what course he is enrolled on! All the ones I'm aware of have the qualification wrapped up in the on the job training.

 

It's really going to do Brockhil some harm when they take on an apprentice, and then get rid of him! At the very least, they need to make sure the poor fella gets a qualification, even if it means they have to fund it themselves - which as a school, really won't cost them very much at all.

 

I do understand a factory, or office or whatever getting themselves into this predicament - but for a school (who have education as their main skill area) it's pretty poor. If the school are using a learning provider, then the contract normally covers this kind of thing because the course revolves on approval and links to funding, so if somebody drops a course mid year, financially, there are usually implications.

 

If you need a junior technician, you should pay him. If you want to offer him an apprenticeship, then the school is ideally placed to find one for him - or indeed, do it themselves. If, however you really wanted cheap labour .................?

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I don't mean to be rude - but an apprentice is NOT supposed to be an extra pair of hands, you are supposed to be training them to the specification set down by the awarding body who is linked to the Government funding for taking them on

 

 

 

Oh chill out.

 

If they're not being an extra pair of hands what are they doing? Standing there with a clipboard doing beano sketches of what everyone else is doing?

 

The whole idea of being an apprentice is you learn by doing the job, not by being described it as per university. If your apprentice is not being an extra pair of hands you've missed the point.

 

There is a clear difference. If the apprentice is meeting their learning objectives by practicing them then the whole idea f the apprenticeship is being met.

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Sorry TC, totally and utterly wrong (and one of us is qualified to actually understand education). An apprenticeship scheme means as you say you are learning on the job. However, that is what every new employee does, and the difference with an apprentice scheme is that they are bound up with a recognised national qualification, approved and quite specific. This also removes the requirement to pay the national minimum wage. The idea of an apprenticeship scheme is you come out of it with a qualification that has a value. No qualification, then the person is NOT an apprentice, is not allowed to earn below the NMW and any public funding provided to a training provider may have to be repaid.

 

Learning on the job is fine - but the actual people taking on the apprentice also have a number of rules to follow, so forgive me for not chilling out when people don't get what they sign up for.

 

I'm not blaming Sam, or his employer - providers go down all the time, and always have - but the only person suffering is the person who thought they'd got on a decent apprentice status learning programme. Sadly too many people see apprenticeship schemes as just a way to pay less than NMW.

 

TC - I know you are an expert on numerous issue, having told us of your history in so many areas - but unless you forgot to tell us differently, you know very little about how education works. The employer has quite a few duties under the system, and some could be quite expensive to actually provide - so the employer has to pay the worker, plus the expenses of running the system - and the Government funding might not cover it all.

 

At the very lowest form, the standard of the training needs to also meet the Level 2 category - which means that what the employer actually teaches them MUST have some form of matching against a proper standard. In days gone by, Apprentices worked at the old HND standard - with most apprentices ending up with an HNC, up at Level 4. Level 2 isn't hard for somebody 16+, but the rules are quite sticky!

 

In Sam's case, another provider will probably pick it up - BUT - first call would be with whoever is providing the educational element, perhaps the local college?

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TC - I know you are an expert on numerous issue, having told us of your history in so many areas - but unless you forgot to tell us differently, you know very little about how education works. The employer has quite a few duties under the system, and some could be quite expensive to actually provide - so the employer has to pay the worker, plus the expenses of running the system - and the Government funding might not cover it all.

 

No I'm not an expert on education at all (I'm not sure anything else either... Depends on your definition of the word I guess)

 

But if somebody is on the job with you then it's inevitable they will become an extra pair of hands. I dot see how an apprentice working on the job means they are not an apprentice anymore? If they are working in a capacity that is suited to their apprentice status and it's benefitting their learning, then surely that is fine. I can't find anything that says apprentices aren't allowed to work during their apprenticeship and can only watch and learn.

 

IF they are being used in place of a staff member I agree this is wrong and not the purpose of an apprenticeship. But there is clearly a difference between taking on an apprentice as a cheap-out from employing somebody extra; and allowing your apprentice to partake in work giving everyone else a hand.

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Whoa, stop, desist.

This is a highly politically contentious area, SEAC claim to be the learning provider and the employer meaning they got two, possibly three sets of taxpayer money and this is all way above Sam's pay grade with regards to contracts and agreements with DWP and SEAC, the apprentice and the school as placement.

 

This might help but my advice is escalate to the Head and governors.

 

Paul is basically right though the legal angles might well be much wider than those he mentions.

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But if somebody is on the job with you then it's inevitable they will become an extra pair of hands.

 

OK - now as someone who served an engineering apprenticeship (and a PROPER apprenticeship lasting three years) I can say that in NO way can or should said apprentice be deemed 'extra' to a work-force. in fact, certainly in the early stages of the term of indenture, the apprentice could well be a DRAIN on the regular guys, as they should be heavily involved in teaching the skills that will be required (teaching by example rather than classroom style) and then SUPERVISING the young lad once he reaches a level of competence where he can start to do the work for himself - but as an apprentice he shouldn't be placed in any position where he has any specific responsibility for working solo.

 

The difference between that and the general worker who 'learns on the job' is that the latter is likely to be learning a far smaller trade-set than an apprentice, who SHOULD be receiving a wide range of training AND tuition as part of his tenure.

 

If modern apprentices are working any different from that sort of model then that could explain a lot of things.......... :(

 

 

 

 

 

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But if somebody is on the job with you then it's inevitable they will become an extra pair of hands.

 

OK - now as someone who served an engineering apprenticeship (and a PROPER apprenticeship lasting three years) I can say that in NO way can or should said apprentice be deemed 'extra' to a work-force.

 

Right, so if somebody is an apprentice lighting tech in a theatre and is learning lights all day every day that's great. But then there's a load in to do and it's customary for the house crew to do the load in.

 

Is the apprentice to be told "No, you aren't allowed to do the load in because that would constitute work and you can't be doing work, even though working on a load in is an essential part of learning to be a lighting tech" ? Of course they're going to be an extra pair of hands.

 

Or if in their first month they're focussing profiles and then in their 8th month they're learning to service movers but a focus needs to be done, should they be left out of the focus because it would be unethical?

 

Seriously what's going on, you guys appear to be advocating separating apprentices from real world experience on the basis that doing anything constituting work would be unethical and apprentices should simply be stood with a clipboard making note of what people are doing but in no way trying to do it.

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No. We are making it clear that an apprentice is a different type of worker in an organisation. Ynot is absolutely right. Dedicated staff who have been trained to teach and supervise are needed, and if they do the job they've been trained for, it has to be monitored, evidenced and paperwork done. Of course they can do the focus and and in or out, that's fine, but they might have H&S documentation to do, reports to write and then some poor devil has to read and assess them.

 

I think the snag is that the current system allows apprentices to work at an absurdly low educational level - broadly like doing another GCSE so actual education from a value added to what they already knew and could do is very, very low. Unscrupulous employers could easily provide little, pay less and take as much as possible. The system is the problem because it does seem to encourage low quality apprenticeships. I can't see the point in a work qualification at anything less than at least Level 3.

 

We are NOT in any way advocating that apprentices don't work hard, we are simply stating that given two identical people, one on an apprentice scheme and one not, the apprentice will come out of the year or two years with a formal qualification and have a deeper and more rounded education in their chosen area. They will have learned things their colleagues will not have, but this learning require extra time, so yes, maybe when some jobs need doing, they won't be available. That said, history seems to show that apprentices have always got dirty and done the boring and dull jobs. What they get is extra to it!

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We, at the school, have an apprenticeship manager, who accepts apprentices that apply via an external host company. The school is a venue in which for the apprentice to train. Pay comes from SEAC, the qualification and criteria come from the learning provider (who has dropped the course...so we don't have a curriculum for him).

 

I use the term 'extra pair of hands', in the most literal way possible. He doesn't just sit in the office looking out the window. He is on the job with us...or was.

 

If the school were to keep him on as a Junior Tech, then yes of course he would be paid, but this would have to be a separate matter.

 

I'm sorry I have upset so many people by giving someone who is interested in working in the industry and opportunity to get some hands on experience. As it happens, a learning provider still has not been found.

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Sam - I think everyone is confused about your school's role.

 

It sounds like basically the people taking the money have arranged a placement with you, in which case one would expect that to be for a fixed period (a bit like the Young Vets programme recently on TV) probably of a few weeks. If so, they are spending a short spell away from the classroom to practice in a real environment. You don't train them as part of their apprenticeship as that is the job of the provider - you provide training on what is needed for the job in hand. For example, in Young Vets they will assist or observe or in some cases take on whatever comes in through the door. The staff at the placement aren't there to train them in anything specific although if it happened they had no patients, then the staff might spend some time with the trainee vet to show them something not done so far (so in this case you might talk about a flying environment even if you aren't one yourself) or test what knowledge they have picked up working with them, in an informal way.

 

However I would expect some kind of report to go back to the supplier when the placement ends? But it sounds more like your apprentice has been dumped in your school, although you like him/her as a potential colleague?

 

So your school is not the provider of either the apprenticeship or the training towards any formal qualification? If I am anywhere near the mark, I can't see the apprentice is getting a good deal here unless this is just one of several placements in different environment types which are part of a larger picture? So there should be a programme covering theatre, dance, touring, live music, events et al as well as different disciplines: stage management, lighting, sound, rigging, counterweighting, set building, etc etc. It sounds like this is not the case?

 

 

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What was the course title that they dropped? What sort of work are they doing? Electrical/LX? Carpentry? Bit of everything?

 

A suggestion would be to get them on an ONC in Electrical and Electronic engineering. It's what I studied (followed by HNC and lots of job specific training) and would give a good grounding in electronics and electrical bits and bobs. Whilst it's not directly industry related, and I didn't study it in order to aid my theatre work, it's taught me a lot of useful and transferrable skills.

 

One thing; the same course will differ hugely from college to college and region to region. The colleges tailor their courses to local industry, so we did lots of PLC and process control work because of the amount of industry in the area, whereas there's not much in the way of electronics design on the course. Meanwhile if you're at a coastal town you'll find they might teach radio theory (there's a module for it, that I was desperate to study, but couldn't find anybody who taught it!).

 

There are lots of options, but ultimately it's the training provider who's got to sort this out, though I completely understand that if you've got a good apprentice, you want to keep hold of them!

 

 

 

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Sam - you haven't upset anyone at all - but as a new member you won't be aware the quite polarised attitude to the scheme.

 

If the school have a genuine altruistic intention to provide learning - then dropping the poor lad because the funding has been cut or the supply company gone bust or whatever is morally dreadful for a school.

 

I'd think that you have a duty to this lad to take it over and give him what was promised, even if it costs you. You might also get a decent employee out of it.

 

Isn't it a bit awkward when your Principal States:

Our curriculum allows for accelerated learning and considerable support when this is needed. We believe in developing a learning culture that is personalised, creative and engaging. Our fundamental learning aims are:

 

To raise standards inclusively through improving teaching and learning.

To enable the future of each student through the development of creativity.

Performance and enterprise.

To promote lifelong learning.

That is, unless it goes wrong, when we let them go ............

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I'd think that you have a duty to this lad to take it over and give him what was promised, even if it costs you. You might also get a decent employee out of it.

 

I agree 100%. I am hoping that our principal will offer some form paid work experience for him at the VERY least, but this still will not equate to the qualification he was hoping for...which we do not have the ability to award him. The real shame is that he is an ex-student, who contributed countless hours helping us rig for shows and acted as ASM etc.

 

The learning provider that was originally intended to provide the learning outcomes and specs etc. was Lewisham Southwark College (LeSoCo). The course/apprenticeship was called 'Technical Theatre' and would have provided an NVQ I believe.

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