If you don’t work in apprenticeship education, you could be forgiven for not knowing the scale of change that has gone on over the past few years. But only just forgiven - the reforms have been sweeping, the ambition considerable, and they have generated articles and opinions far beyond the education press.

Work-based education has been with us for centuries - you could argue that apprenticeship is the oldest form of vocational and technical education - and its recent renaissance is a cornerstone of bringing young people into long-term sustainable employment in a vast range of industries.

So why the reforms? The reasons are complex and numerous, but a simple explanation might be to re-engage employers who were beginning to feel that the previous apprenticeship curriculum did not meet their needs, and to raise the status, visibility and aspiration of apprenticeships to potential recruits.

In the main, you could argue that this has happened, and while the apprenticeship agenda still has a distance to travel to achieve everything that was envisioned, there is reason for considerable optimism.

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However, in making reforms, it is important to look at every aspect of what is happening as a system evolves. The changes made in moving to Standards were driven very strongly by employers. This drive was a reaction to perceptions that they had not been as closely involved in the previous apprenticeship curriculum, but it means that providers were simultaneously caught out with a change to educational practice, funding systems and to the subject matter. There is much more teaching expected of provision than may have been the case, the apprenticeship levy was introduced and there is, of course, the small matter of the end-point assessment.

Apprenticeships: Let teachers have their input

Not that providers are unable to rise to this challenge - they already have, and, in the main, have handled things very well. But there are skills expected of teachers/assessors and leaders in this part of our sector that have not always been needed before, and with the time pressures on education staff, it is understandable that, despite these reforms being embedded for some time, many still feel the need to undertake professional development to deliver the very best outcomes they can for their apprentices.

During the pandemic, when national headlines have included worries over apprentice redundancy and wider youth unemployment, it is particularly important that the educational pact between employer, provider and apprentice is strong enough to withstand the economic pressures on many industries, and that everyone involved is well placed to deliver their very best.

The recent government White Paper signalled a drive to support this, and the Education and Training Foundation has rapidly developed a range of online courses to bring learning opportunities to teaching and leadership staff in apprenticeships. Free to use, these resources try to address the most common areas of need for busy staff, targeting the areas identified as most in need of further support; for example, preparing learners for end-point assessment.

Perhaps the greatest challenge, though, lies in helping staff to invest the time in developing their skills - in recognising that CPD is going to help them improve, and probably build a better relationship with their employer partners. Even an online course takes effort away from the other pressing needs of the day job, and all the while providers are happy what they are doing is going to be good enough, there isn’t always a focus on what will make them excellent.

Just because an apprentice spends the majority of their time out of sight of their teachers/assessors, it shouldn’t allow us to lose sight of the fact that they are a learner with similar needs to someone in full-time educational provision.

Providers have a lot they need to do to help young people achieve, and large parts of it may not be things employers need or want to be heavily involved in. Work-based teaching needs to bridge that divide, to inspire and train apprentices and give them immediately relevant skills for their workplace, but it also needs to prepare them for successful EPA and for a career that may not involve their current employer. They need some wider skills and knowledge that makes them a good employee in their industry, some of which may not resonate with their immediate paymasters.

For all that to work well, educational leadership needs to understand this tension and know how best to mitigate. Co-design with an employer is an essential part of high-quality apprenticeships, but so is having the educational clarity to know when to step in and back the teacher - there should always be a moment which gives an employer confidence that, as a teaching organisation, you may meet all their needs, but you will also make certain you meet the needs of the apprentice as well, even if that brings short-term disagreement or tension. In the long run, better-trained staff are better and more productive employees. A good partnership is not one-way traffic, and it pays employers to have the best education provision they can find.

That is a hard balance to achieve. Perhaps the most important thing is to remember that in today’s society a young person has been told clearly they will not have a job for life. They may well have several careers. They may value and cherish their apprenticeship, and so they should, but they will remember what they learned - and that means they need to be taught. Teach them well, and they will contribute immensely to their employer, even when they are learning something that they don’t use day to day, provided you planned the curriculum well enough that they don’t feel lost and out of step in their workplace.

Employers have had their input. Make sure the teacher has the chance to have theirs.

Paul Kessell-Holland is national head of T-level design and higher-level education at the Education and Training Foundation