craft apprentice Review

in this apprenticeship our role is to learn the trade we were put into. for me this is fabrication and instillation of marine steelwork. Day to day this includes working with tradesmen and learning from them and supporting them with the job. Our responsibilities are to work safely and get the job done to a high standard.

yes i have. I have learned many new skills here which include working safely and metal work such as drilling metal and cutting mental and bending metal and reading engineering drawings and out fitting marine steel work and operating computer controlled. I have also learnt to deal with management requests.

I enjoy the fact that it is a hands on job and that I am able to work away from being micro managed. I do not how ever enjoy the lack of further training offered and the inconsistency of managements feelings towards you. I believe that career development should be continuous.

The organisation varies depending where in the business you are placed. Most of the time the managers are doing all the can to help you get on with jobs. The programme doesn't allow much room for growth and at times there can be very little work to carry out.

I have received varied support in my time here. I was left unsupported for a year and a half when there was not much work to do. I raised this with management many many times and despite many promises that work would be given to us nothing changed until we moved placement.

Babcock and the training school were actually good at helping us achieve our qualifications. The first year was well structured and we achieved a lot. Once we were out into the business we were meant to have monthly progress meetings to help us track our progress through our NVW qualification.

I believe the qualification works well alongside the jobs we carry out but not all of it was relevant. The training gives you good basic understanding of engineering principles which is good. I think further and higher qualifications should be available to help you gain a greater understanding of the role.

There are no extra curricular activities available here. Some people have organised their own things and in first year we organised a couple of football games and things like that but there is no regular activities. I don't believe that this work place is a leader in extra curricular activities.

No

In my experience it has not been a happy place to work, I think there is so much wasted opportunity for great things here but there are too many people getting in the way stopping these things from happening. I would only recommend it to someone who is specifically looking at doing this trade.

I would advise them to get friendly with the right people and to stay out of trouble. I would also tell them to work hard and if they didn't like their placement to ask to be changed as soon as possible so they don't become disheartened.