Maintenance Technician Review

For the first year of the apprenticeship i go to the apprentice training school on plant in oxford. On mondays we are completing out btec course which consists of many different modules including health and safety, electrical principles and more. For the rest of the week we are downstairs in the workshop having a more hands on experience and learning about things like pneumatics, electronics, how to use different machines, welding etc.

I have learnt new skills such as how to weld as before i started this apprenticeship i had never welded before so it was a new experience that i enjoyed. I also developed my skills in milling as i had used a milling machine previous to starting my apprenticeship, I had done a bit of milling at college beforehand.

Overall i would say i quite enjoy this apprenticeship as we are learning loads of different skills and there is a lot of hands on experience which i prefer to written work. The facilities here in the plant are also great which does help with my experience with the apprenticeship as it offers more opportunities that other places might not have offered.

I feel like the apprenticeship is organised quite well for the majority of it especially down in the workshop with all the groups moving around the different rotations and the assessments we do for each rotation. However even though the btec is only 1 day a week it is quite poorly organised. The btec is quite an important part of the apprenticeship and with it being quite poorly organised this hinders my learning and therefore would lower the grades i get in the end when i could potentially get much higher grades.

We receive a great amount of support and if we are struggling with something we can go and speak to the employers and they will be more than happy to help with any problem we come across whilst we are here doing this apprenticeship. The same goes with btec work if we struggle with any part we can ask the tutors and they will happily help us with anything.

We receive a lot of help from the training provider when working towards our btec as if we get stuck on any part of the work all of the tutors will be more than happy to help us and go through any part again if needed. They also provide us with enough guidance so we can read through and understand further what we are learning.

I think the apprenticeship i am doing will help with my job role i am being trained for as it is giving me an understanding of loads of different new skills i will need for my job role and also giving me an understanding of the theory behind these new skills i am learning and how everything works such as pneumatics.

There are a few extra curricular activities we could get involved in for example the apprentice newsletter team where apprentices can sign up to join the team if they enjoy a journalism type activity and they can write about different news to do with the company and put it in the newsletter for all the other apprentices to read.

Yes

it is a great apprenticeship with great opportunities where you learn loads of new skills as well as developing previous skills you already knew. There is also a good offer on the car scheme where if you are 18+ you can order a car for a number of months for relatively cheap.

I would advise others who are applying to this apprenticeship to keep on top of all of your work as if you leave it till last minute you will quickly get behind and have loads of work to do but if you keep on top of it all you will find it much less stressful and find the workload easier to complete on time.