Former and current apprentices working at Warwick met for a networking session on Tuesday 6 March, during National Apprenticeship Week. They got together in a session facilitated by Paul Johnson, Technical Services Manager in WMG, to compare experiences of being apprentices at the University and think about the challenges and opportunities they had faced.

The apprentices were joined by managers and mentors who wanted to hear how we can learn from these experiences to make a difference for apprentices who come to work at the University in the future.

University Registrar Rachel Sandby-Thomas joined the session to talk to apprentices and to hear feedback from the group and to listen to the recommendations, which were:

• That apprentices should play a lead role in outreach activities using their knowledge and credibility to persuade people of the benefits of doing an apprenticeship at Warwick;
• That more networking between apprentices across the university would support induction and would help people develop their professional networks;
• That central teams need to help facilitate and coordinate apprenticeship activity to ensure it’s well-planned and easy to understand.

Rachel welcomed the enthusiasm of the apprentices and their commitment to get involved with growing apprenticeships at Warwick.

The group hopes to have follow up workshops and events in the near future. More information will follow soon and if you’d like to express interest in being involved, please email staffapprenticeships at warwick dot ac dot uk

Find out more

Visit the staff apprenticeships pages to find out more about potential opportunities for you or your team to develop new skills through an apprenticeship or how you might fill an approved or budgeted vacancy by recruiting an apprentice:
https://warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/internal/apprenticeships or contact staffapprenticeships at warwick dot ac dot uk

Visit the Degree Apprenticeship pages to find out more about how you might develop a degree apprenticeship course in your academic department, or join a trailblazer group to set a new standard:
https://warwick.ac.uk/study/degreeapprenticeships/universitystaff/ or contact apprenticeships at warwick dot ac dot uk

Hear from some of our current apprentices at https://warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/internal/apprenticeships/staff_profiles/