DS is 17 and planning to leave school at the end of S5. He's very clear that he wants to do something practical and physical, moving around rather than sitting at a desk. So he definitely doesn't want to go to uni. He's smart, I think he'll get 3-4 Highers at B or C.
Everyone helpfully suggests that he should get an apprenticeship. We've been looking for months and not found anything he's really interested in. But we'll keep looking. Many of the construction company apprenticeships seem to be more around project management or civil engineering. He doesn't want to do that.
He'd love to work with a joiner but we haven't had any luck finding someone to take him on. We are trying really hard. It seems like it's a bit of a closed shop around here and if you don't have a dad or an uncle in the trade it's almost impossible to get in. We've contacted companies, we've asked on local Facebook groups, we've ask every tradesman who's worked on our house recently (we've had lots).
Our local college doesn't offer much in the way of practical courses and the ones that are on offer seem to run alongside work or work experience, which we're struggling to find for him.
Does anyone have any suggestions for routes we could try, or places we could look? It feels like with all the house building going on around us in particular it should be easy to find something but it's not working out that way so far. Maybe we're looking in all the wrong places.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you