Action on Access Conference, Regents College London.

4th November 2009

Following the success of the workshop delivered by the Forum and three former apprentices (from NLTG, Training 2000 and Beneast) at the Aimhigher Conference in June we were asked to deliver a similar workshop in London hosted by Action On Access.  The theme of the conference was ‘Work-based and Apprenticeship Progression to Higher Education’; despite the fact that progression for apprentices is a recurring theme for government policy there still remains only a small  number of Advanced Apprentices that do progress to higher education.

We have discovered whilst undertaking work for Aimhigher and the Lifelong Learning Network that a number of our Training Providers are very successful and effective at progressing their own apprentices. Catherine Heys, from NLTG, and Joshua Lalgee, from Beneast, are two of the successful former apprentices in question. They accompanied us to the conference to tell participants of our workshop “Apprentices who have Advanced” about their own journey and experiences through school, their Apprenticeship, further learning and their current job. They have very contrasting tales to tell but have both undertaken further learning which now helps them in their current roles.

Our workshop went well and prompted a debate amongst the audience relating to IAG (or lack of it!); both Catherine and Joshua were superb and we thank them and their employers for their time and contribution to the day.