New ways of educating the next generation

As the summer comes to an end thousands will embark on the apprenticeships and T-levels, which will shape their future lives and careers.  

Latest figures from the Department for Education showed that over 9,000 people participated in apprenticeships in Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness in 2023/24 with around 3,600 starts.  

As the new academic year begins, around 1,000 new entrants will be starting their apprenticeships at Lakes College, in Lillyhall, alongside about 200 who will be studying for their T-levels.  

Iain Glendinning, vice principal for curriculum and quality, says its apprenticeships cover areas as diverse as social care, education, hospitality, hair and beauty, engineering and construction, nuclear and business administration. 

"Apprenticeships are booming really, specifically for 16 to 18-year-olds," says Iain. “We've seen real growth over the last couple of years." 

Unsurprisingly for a West Cumbrian college with the Sellafield site on its doorstep, it has seen the largest growth in engineering and construction apprenticeships. 

A more challenging area is health, social care and early years education, where employers find it harder to release apprentices for training time. 

"They find it hard to get enough people in as it is, so then to get people in and have to release them is a challenge," says Iain. 

However, he hopes changes to the Apprenticeship Levy scheme may mean employers are able to use it to fund other types of commercial training which could fit better with health and social and educational employers.  

Launched in 2017, the Apprenticeship Levy is paid by employers with a wage bill of over £3m per year with the money then put towards the provision of apprenticeships in England.  

The Labour government is in the process of reforming the scheme, including by creating Skills England, a centralised hub to try and align skills provision across the country.  

The new government has also suggested replacing the current system with a Growth and Skills Levy which will allow the money raised to be spent on training other than apprenticeships. 

Iain says it is important for the college to keep communicating with employers around the type of apprenticeships required to fulfil their needs. 

Apprenticeships standards - which outline what an apprentice will learn - are set by groups of employers.  

Iain says the number of different standards which exist can often make teaching quite complex for providers. 

"We could have one group of engineers on 14 different standards in one class and that becomes a challenge," he says.  

"So it's about us having those conversations with employers to ask do you need this very specific steel fixing apprenticeship or actually is it better to use this other standard, which is maybe a bit more rounded and can teach the specifics without being pinned down to that one qualification?  

"It's really important that employers come and have lots of conversations about what exactly it is they are looking for.” 

Iain says the huge demand for engineering apprenticeships is also outstripping the supply of experienced people able to deliver them. 

“It's finding people who are coming out of industry and looking to mix employment,” he says. 

“So maybe working part-time and teaching part-time and trying to find other ways to get people on board to teach, because there's such a demand for engineering apprenticeships in this area.”  

In the future he says there is also the opportunity for growth in other areas. 

"I'd love to hear from more employers in service industries, in hospitality, catering and hair and beauty, about what their training needs look like over the next two to three years and how we support that.” 

Alongside apprenticeships, T-levels at Lakes College cover areas including engineering, construction, digital support services, leadership or its nurse cadet programme, which it runs with the NHS.  

T-levels are two-year courses, which are roughly equivalent to three A-levels.  
They have been developed in collaboration between employers and education providers and involve practical and classroom-based studies as well as an industry placement of around 45 days. 

"If you want to go and do a degree or degree apprenticeships, T-levels are a fantastic way to get that industry insight and to work, with a mixture of academic and practical, as opposed to purely academic,” says Iain.  

“It's still the equivalent of three A-levels and it's a really, really robust qualification.” 

(Image: Newsquest)

Kendal College is one organisation which is introducing new T-level options this year. 

In January it will be opening a TV studio in its new campus in the Westmorland Shopping Centre, in Kendal town centre, offering a media, broadcast and production T-level. 

This month it is also beginning to offer new T-levels in animal care and fashion and textiles.  

It also currently offers T-levels in health and social care, engineering, in business management and business finance and in childhood studies.  

In addition, the college offers many different types of apprenticeships across catering, animal care and motor vehicle maintenance and other areas, with apprentices most highly represented in agriculture, health and social and residential care and agriculture. 

Between 600 and 700 people can be involved in apprenticeships with the college at any one time. 

"Ultimately, we're responsive to what employers need,” says Sinead Kay, director of arts, apprenticeships and education. 

“We work with a huge number of individual businesses and when employees come to us and ask us if we have apprenticeships in certain areas, if there's viability there, we'll create an apprenticeship.” 

One example of this is the pharmacy technician apprenticeship which the college began running alongside the local NHS in response to a need for people to fill these positions.  

Since the closure of Newton Rigg agricultural college in 2021 Kendal College has also begun running agricultural apprenticeships and will launch a new assistant farm manager apprenticeship this year. 

While the number of people doing apprenticeships with Kendal College has risen in recent years, it has begun to flatten off in the last 12 months.  

Sinead says some of the factors which can put employers off are the bureaucracy involved in the process of employing an apprentice, while problems can also arise due to apprentices having to continue to study for GCSE maths and English if they have not passed these exams already.  

It may also be the case that while working at a business may involve learning many of the skills that an apprenticeship involves, specific businesses may not tick all of the boxes to take part in the schemes. 

At Furness College, in Barrow, vice principal Kate Colebourn says the numbers of students doing apprenticeships in different fields varies each year but covers a wide range of subject areas, with health, engineering, construction and childcare proving particularly popular. 

The obvious presence of BAE Systems Maritime, with its drive to grow its workforce to around 17,000 by the 2030s, makes it a major attraction for apprentices. 

However, as its workforce and the town’s population grows, Kate says there will also be an associated need for many different skills. 

"That means we need more childcare in the town so we need more nurseries that are able to take on apprentices,” she says.  

“It's the knock on of the wider effect, as well as that engineering and construction growth that we know and expect.” 

The college works with local employers to develop its apprenticeships and also works with them to fulfil their needs through those that exist already.  

"Just because we don't offer it doesn't mean we can't do it. We try to ensure that we've got a really broad offer that's meeting the needs of the area,” says Kate. 

It also offers Higher Technical Qualifications in engineering, health, business, computing, construction and teaching degrees.  

HTQs are level four and five qualifications such as Foundation Degrees, Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas.  

They are designed to help people develop the skills that employers need to set them up for their career, or help adults who are already part-way through their career to upskill or retrain. 

Kate says the T-levels which Furness College offers are a good way to lay the foundations before beginning an HTQ. 

"A T-level is the flip of an apprenticeship," says Kate.  

"Whereas with an apprenticeship, you're based in work, and you spend a proportion of that time in college, for a T-level, you're based in college, yet you spend a proportion of your time out with an industry placement. 

"There's a real opportunity to learn on the job and it's got real industrial links. You get to the end of a T-level and you've got options.  

“There's a higher level apprenticeship, there’s university, or you can continue to study with us or another provider on Higher Technical Qualifications.” 

Kate says it is the college’s job to give as much information as it can to employers about the training options available to ensure they and the learners benefit as much as possible.  

"The more information we can give employers around apprenticeships the better and it's our job to do it, because actually, first and foremost, employers are trying to get on with their day job,” she says. 

“We just need to do all we can to support them to know that there are options. I encourage anybody to speak to us, because we can explore what those options might be.”