Does anyone know more about apprenticeships?

[Titsywoo]

Ds15 is currently doing work experience with an IT company who DH has work contacts in. They love him there and have said if he wants to come and work for them after GCSE's they would like to have him as he is intelligent, hardworking and has a lot of potential (network engineer/development/sysad etc). DS would love this as although he does well at school he finds it dull and restrictive and has no interest in Alevels.

Of course it seems the only way he can do that is for them to take him on as an apprentice which is something they haven't done before but they will work with us on sorting this out. So as far as I can tell he can work for them 4 days a week and then spend the 5th day studying. Something like CCNA would be ideal but is there some sort of process that needs to be followed and can he study anything related to the work he will be doing or are there certain approved courses? If anyone knows where I can go for advice I would appreciate it!

There are certain courses available through the apprenticeship scheme, at different levels up to degree level. The Institute for Apprenticeship website has the details of all the different courses available. He would need to find an education provider as well, either online or by going in to the local college if they offer the relevant course.

Also he could do three weeks work and then one week study for example, it’s not always the 4 days work one day study pattern although that is common.

Go online at www.gov.uk and search for apprenticeships. There’s everything there you will need - very informative and user friendly! Good luck!

www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=Apprenticeships&order=relevance
might be worth a look- or local colleges?

Cross posts

CCNA isn't an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships are specialised qualifications and are given levels. i.e Level 3 Networking and Infrastructure.

Baltic and QA are two apprenticeship providers I know of who specialise in technology apprenticeships. He will do some certifications alongside his apprentice but they'll be a lot lighter than CCNA. The main qualification is the level three one.

I wouldn't reccomend jumping straight into CCNA off of the back of GCSE IT. If he wants go down a self training route I'd start with CompTia A+. Cisco reccomend 3 years experience in the field before starting CCNA.

Ok that's fine although I think the Level 3 will be too basic for him. He is way beyond GCSE IT and has been self studying for the CCNA at home.

The company will use an approved apprentiship provider who will do some of the training and assessment. Try googling IT apprentiship providers to see which ones come up, and see if he and someone in the company can have a call with one or a few of them to explain how it all works and what the best qualification might be.

20% of his work time would need to be learning but this can be a mix of classroom based learning, on the job training, coaching etc, so it won't always be a fixed 1 day per week, it depends how the training company and the employer decide to structure it.

Level 3 is A level standard
GCSE is level 2

Contact your local college or training provider and they should be able to help.

Ok thanks

The level three is work based. It is to prove to employers that you can work and covers things like health and safety and professionality.

The qualification itself is built from evidence collected at the workplace rather than a course, iyswim? He will have to cover certain topics, for instance in the one I mentioned he will need to set up two mobile devices and show evidence (screencaps, photographs etc), connect to various devices remotely, repair or upgrade one piece of hardware, use three different troubleshooting tools and explain why he chose that tool, analyse data for the purpose of troubleshooting and explain what the data means, write three pieces of professional communication etc.

He will then have one large "end project" which usually consists of planning and building (virtually) a basic network.

Alongside that he will complete a number of certifications. Our apprentices do BA Coding and Logic, MTA Network Essentials, MTA Mobility and Device Fundamentals and BA Business Processes.