DD hates her apprenticeship how to guide her

[WhatTheWhoTheWhatThe]

Well enjoys the actual work (accountancy) but hates the culture of her office and the quality of the training provider (2 hours online each week) is poor.
my current thought is she gets her AAT level 2 and then looks for another apprenticeship for level 3 & 4 but not sure what the logistics of leaving one apprenticeship to start another is or how to move on without looking flakey.
I want her to carry on with the AAT as I thinks it’s a good long term career option but she’s only 16 so struggling to see past the next few weeks let alone into the next few years. I do think part of the issue is her age and the reality of working when her mates are all laying in bed and rocking up mid morning for a lesson at college or 6th form is hitting her hard at the moment.
actually not sure if this is an employment issue or parenting issue!

I think your DD has been unlucky in both her employer and her training provider. What happens with her 20% off the job? She needs better support and mentoring. My advice would be to work as hard as she can in this placement to get her Level 2, as she’s already made progress, and then look elsewhere for Level 3. She might be better looked after if she went through a local FE college as they are generally well set up to look after apprentices properly.

Many apprenticeship employees use apprentices as a way to get cheap labour, that’s all it is. That’s why you see places like Greggs, Superdrug etc offering customer service apprenticeships on £4 an hour

The links to the top 50+top50 etc are here:
www.icaew.com/library/industry-guides/accountancy-industry/accountancy-firms-and-networks

If that helps identifying alternative practices to research.

The confidence/sensitivity thing is tricky. If you're not feeling good about yourself it's very easy to misinterpret everything through a critical lens and feel people are getting at you when they're not.

I know I am guilty of doing that sometimes and I'm much older than her. It's a difficult one. A supportive culture and line manager do help building the self-belief to interpret things more fairly.

Picking up on pp's suggestion - some people do AAT full time at college then look for a job. That can make it a harder transition to have all the theory and no practical experience, but it's not impossible.

If she still wants to pursue accountancy that could be an option - as could doing a totally unrelated subject(s) at college to build her confidence, self-esteem, maturity then doing an apprenticeship at 18 if she still wants to.

If the apprenticeship is not giving her adequate training, it wouldn;t be a mistake to leave.

Meanwhile, could she ask her mentor for some in-person feedback and guidance. Can her mentor not manage half a day a week in the office, during which she allocates some time to her apprentice?

If it's any comfort to her, a friend of mine, who ended up as CEO of a multinational on a massive salary, said everyone hates their first job. The shock from chilled adolescent life to full time employment is a big jump, but after a while it becomes normal. She also said, move sideways or upwards every six months or so until you get where you want to be, or negoiate an improvement where you are. So your DD could ask for some specific developments to her training or look elsewhere for a more productive placement.

If it's any comfort to her, a friend of mine, who ended up as CEO of a multinational on a massive salary, said everyone hates their first job.

Your friends wrong. That's such a sweeping statement.

My daughter left her nursery apprenticeship after 4 months due to being bullied by management and other staff was truly an awful time and at 16 a lot to cope with.
She managed to find another nursery and college allowed her to continue her apprenticeship there.

Was definitely the right thing to do, the environment is much healthier she is supported and treated like one of the team. She's thrived since and now passed level 2.
Although a different subject I'd definitely advise looking into an alternative company for your daughter, it's really affected mines mental health.

Helpful comment @girlmom21 . OP's daughter is struggling. Clearly my friend hasn't asked everyone in the world how they feel about their first job. Her point is, it's a radical adjustment and quite normal to resist it and feel out of your depth. I mentioned it as a form of reassurance for OP's daughter and to imply that she could thrive as my friend has done - a tough start won't stay that way.

There's no point lying to OP's daughter though, is there.

There's plenty of useful practical advice. But 'everyone hates their first job' isn't it.
Does that mean she should stick it out or leave, anyway?

@Logistria thank you so much your posts are really helpful thank you for taking the time to write them.

Lots of useful advice and food for thought from everyone. I’m going to sit down with DD later and go through the questions raised by everyone and hopefully we can come to a logical conclusion for how to move forward!

With regards to the question about her contract she’s never had one but she has got some emails from the training provider from when she was offered the place so we will look through and see if they cover what happens in regards to training costs if she doesn’t stay.

They're not allowed to ask her to pay anything back as it's government funded
advice.completeapprenticeshipguide.com/knowledge-base/how-to-quit-an-apprenticeship/

Please do encourage her to speak to her training provider and seek alternative employment if she's a decent way through the course. If nothing else, at least nobody else will be sent to work there by that training provider

That’s useful to know thank you

I think it’s poor that the training provider doesn’t give a written plan to the apprentice ablution how they are mentored and trained. Eg regular meetings, curriculum (can’t think of a better word), rotation of departments, learning outcomes etc. It seems very unstructured and it wouldn’t be good enough for Ofsted in a school. However it’s worth looking at all the paperwork to see if there is a better structure intended and see if there is an obvious shortfall of provision.

I agree with you op, it’s not for the apprentices to make the running. It’s for the employer to follow procedures and good practice, if they don’t, what do they achieve? Not much.