Interior Trim Centre Apprentice Review

Every month I move between all the different departments within the interior trim Centre at Rolls-Royce so my daily tasks vary greatly however, the goal in each department is to learn as much of the zone as possible as if we were training as an associate to work in that zone.

since starting here i have developed my sewing skills from where i started simple domestic sewing to being able to sew complex parts on a selection of different industrial machines. i have also learnt how to work with leather as a material in terms of heating it and the way it'll work in situations. the main skills i have developed have been confidence in meetings and being out going and just my all round general people and social skills.

I really enjoy the work side of my programme however feel there is areas that could be improved when it comes to the way the programme is managed by the company. I do not enjoy the college side however as i feel the course doesnt fit the programme and the college expect too much to be done outside of college considering we also have to work.

I find the programme to be very quite unorganised as we often get left till last when certain decisions are being made. it's also very hard to find solutions when we might have issues surrounding the college course and work placements as its challeneging to get answers from people and we get sent onto someone else often. i do think the trainers in my department have done their best to provide the amount of structure and support as they can tho.

i find we dont recieve very much support from the business as when we have an issue we just get told to speak to someone else or that they will find out for us and then either never come back to us or take a very long time to. often times we've dealt with the situation another way by the time they respond.

We recieve very little to no support from the training provider. We are coming up to our end point assesments and still have no idea what we need to put in our portfolios in order to even do the epa. None work we have handed in during the 1.5 years we have been here has been marked and we have no idea if we are doing well or not.

i feel the qualification we are working to does not help our course in any way. The upholstery we do at college is completely different from the upholstery we do at work, we dont work with leather at college so there is no gaining of knowledge for the material we are working with at work. the only thing that may help is the couple of weeks we spend doing seamed components.

I believe there might be some networking events in the company but i dont know how to access or find them. during the almost 2 years ive been here i have only seen 1 volunteering oppurtunity however this is open to the entire factory and they only want 5 people so the chances of actually being chosen are very slim.

No

i feel the programme is too hyped up for what it actually is. the course needs better structure and support from both work and the training providers, the training courses we do need to be far more related to what we are working towards at work as they dont relate at the moment.

i would tell them not to go in with extremely high expectations as they will probably be disappointed, i would also tell them to try and get the training providers to give them exact end goals right from the start and that they will have to constantly ask for work to be marked or they will never get feedback.