Practical Apprentice Review

Year 1 consisted of training in the academy, Years 2 and 3 consisted of additional training along with business work. Now, current in my third year, I am working solely in the business and having lectures each Monday which are virtual due to covid, but originally would be on site. My day-to-day tasks consist of general manufacturing along with some development opportunities such as reprogramming and continuous improvement. 4 year will be purely business work as we will have finished out theory learning this year.

I have learnt several new skills and developed several existing skills. Before starting I was quite a shy individual, however now 2.5 years into my apprenticeship, I am pushing towards a leadership position as my confidence has grown. Communication is also key in engineering so this has been developed massively as ive been introduced to all kinds of new methods to communicate with colleagues as well as customers. Others include, efficiency, integrity and terminology.

I have really enjoyed my programme in general because it has opened a lot of doors for me. I moved 200+ miles away from home to do this apprenticeship, leaving all friends and family behind so I started fresh, but Rolls-Royce has given me so many new friends and opportunities that I would not change for anything. Moving also allowed me to develop as a person and become far more independent than possible before joining.

Generally it has been clearly formatted and we have always been aware of what is expected of us at which times. With the pandemic is has become slightly harder to track sometimes, but that is no fault of the company, just a poor situation. The company did however adapt to the new rules well and still made everything as simple as possible for us to we could all keep on track with the end date of our apprenticehship.

We have endless support from the company in the form of tutors, lecturers and adl's (apprentice development leaders) who are always there for us. We have reviews every 8 weeks to check on progress and they also ask about mental health and physical wellbeing. You are always encouraged to seek help nd support when you struggle because there is a lot of hard times, but there will always be people to support you throughout.

So in regards to my NVQ, we have monthly reviews and progress updates. Each month we will be set certain tasks to complete which are due for the following meeting. This helps keep us on track with the final end of apprenticeship date and makes sure we are on track. We also have to keep our ADL's informed of work load and what we are doing / have done so they can keep track too.

So Derby college have been our trainer and generally it has been very good. We did have an issue with one of the lecturers who was clearly not right for the job, but Derby college quickly rectified this and they were placed by a far better tutor. All of our other lecturers have been very good and offer plenty of support, so in terms of our training provider, they have been very good for us.

There are many extra activities we can do through work. These are not restricted to sports but in fact are in almost every sector. If Rolls-Royce don't offer the hobby, they often outsource it to a local club so participation is still possible. They are also very good at networking, so (pre-covid) offer several networking events which are based on a topic such as leadership, engineering or project management etc. No shortage of activities.

Yes

Having moved over 200 miles away from home to join this company, and having started fresh, not knowing anybody or anywhere, I have been able to create great friendships, meet some brilliant people and set myself up for life. They offer a competitive salary, carefully structured workload and easy to achieve NVQ level 3 in engineering. Commit to the company for 3 or 4 years and I promise you will never look back from there.

Research the company before applying, research possible schemes and routes after those schemes to see if it is something you can see yourself doing. Attend virtual careers affairs to gauge the apprenticeship, no matter what your entry level is.