Finning, exclusive dealer of Cat machines and equipment in the UK & Ireland, held the event to recognise the class of 2018 for completing their four-year programme.
Marsha Myles, learning and organisational development manager, claims that the company has achieved a 91.7% Qualification Achievement Rate which represents one of the highest qualification rates across the whole of England where the national average is 58.4%.
She says: “It is a credit to our apprenticeship training manager Craig Smallman and his team that we have achieved these results. They have supported our apprentices throughout their four years and overcome many challenges due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic, including adapting the way they delivered the course, from practical in-person training, to an effective and inspiring online, hybrid model.
“As soon as it was possible to deliver training face to face again, the team refreshed the online elements to ensure every apprentice had the practical knowledge they needed to meet the demands of the new qualification standard. All their work is externally verified and includes a final exam with both knowledge and practical tests where they must show their skill working on a machine.”
All apprentices have now secured permanent roles at Finning. Among them was Joe Cross, who won the Apprentice of the Year Award, achieving the highest mark for his assessment, and Sam Elphick, who has dyslexia, who achieved a distinction having got to grips with a combination of online and hands-on training.
Elphick is now based at the Finning UK site in Ashford in Kent, working within the workshop, helping to prepare and rebuild machines from dozers to loading shovels.
Marsha added: “It’s a big challenge to engage and attract young people into the industry. As such, we’re constantly reviewing our apprenticeship recruitment strategy and are continuing to develop our outreach programmes to colleges and schools. We will be paying particular attention to some of the deprived areas surrounding our six regional branches and want to encourage more applications from underrepresented groups within our industry, including ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and women.
“This year 40% of admissions to the apprenticeship programme are diagnosed with some form of learning disability such as ADHD, dyslexia or dyspraxia, which is encouraging as we want to ensure we’re as inclusive an employer as possible.
“However, there’s still much more that we want to do to attract more people from ethnic minorities and female apprentices to better reflect the society we live in.”