Think back to when the education world had not been rocked by the coronavirus outbreak and consider what a typical apprenticeship programme at a college or education provider looked like.

You probably picture a programme in which apprentices spend four days a week at their employer and one day a week at their college or provider; after all, that’s the usual way most providers deliver the 20 per cent off-the-job training required for an apprenticeship.

But at Fareham College, our Level 2 civil engineering and groundworks apprenticeship has a different approach. Instead of seeing our apprentices once a week throughout the year, we see them every day for a 20-week block at the start of their programme before they then move on to do a remaining 58 weeks on site with employers.

Why? Because that is what industry experts told us they wanted.

In February 2017, we were approached by civil engineering contractor Blanchard Wells. It was suffering from an ageing workforce, new trainees with insufficient levels of training and a boom in new-build projects, all of which manifested in a skills shortage.

To tackle the problem head-on, we set up the Solent Civil Engineering Employers’ Group, a group of 16 local civil engineering employers that came together with the college to create a training programme that would address the skills shortages, support the construction industry across the region and create more job opportunities throughout the sector.

When building the new training programme, we asked employers what was not working in their current programme. They told us that because the apprentices were sent to college for just one day a week, it took too long for them to get the skills they needed to be helpful at work and integrate as part of the team.

And so we set out to rewrite the rulebook to address this problem. We decided we would offer a programme in which apprentices spent 20 weeks with us at college, building apprentices’ work-ready skills and ensuring that they completed the machine licences they needed to work on site.

But in order to do this successfully, we had to build a simulated work environment for these skills to be taught in.

So in 2018, we established Fareham’s College’s Civil Engineering Training Centre (CETC): a purpose-built, two-acre mock construction site dedicated to the delivery of specialist civil engineering and groundworks apprenticeships and professional training courses.

Due to the success and interest generated throughout the CETC’s inaugural year of operation, the college submitted various applications for funding in order to build an even bigger and better site.

We were delighted to receive £2.8 million from Solent Local Enterprise Partnership towards this goal. This meant that, combined with funds from other sources, we were able to open our brand-new £4.7-million facility by December 2019.

The facility provides a fully operational, realistic groundworks and civil engineering training environment and is fully equipped with the machinery, tools, materials and resources needed to ensure that all apprentices develop the necessary skills.

This includes:

• A 1,008-square-metre state-of-the-art facility, comprising two floors of spacious indoor teaching space, classrooms, IT suites, space for self-directed learning and changing facilities.
• A 5,000-square-metre live outdoor construction site training space.
• Capacity for up to 20 specialist teaching staff and professional coaches.
• A 3,600-square-metre Construction Plant Competence Scheme test centre for ride-on roller and forward-tipping dumper training.

Students are trained in the use of forward-tipping dumpers, ride-on rollers, cement mixers, wacker plates, loading shovels and levelling equipment.

We train them how to lay foundations, mix and pour concrete, lay drainage, install edgings and kerbs, pave slabs and block pave, perfect concrete finishes, practise brickwork techniques and install steel fixings, and use surveying and levelling equipment. The site also has classrooms in which apprentices learn relevant theory.

All these skills would have previously been learned partially on site with the employer and partially with us at college. But as the employers told us, this meant that when apprentices were on site, they did not possess the skills they needed straightaway to do meaningful work.

Another big change that we made was to alter the day-to-day timetable to reflect real-life industry shifts. Apprentices start at 8.30am and finish at 4.30pm.

Ideally, we would like the apprentices to start earlier in the morning at 7.30am. But because students are under 17 and therefore unable to drive, they have to rely on public transport, which isn’t readily available at that time in the morning.

Perhaps even more notably, we have also removed breaks for half terms, Easter or summer - after all, construction sites don’t stop for these breaks.

This, of course, has meant changes to staff contracts to reflect this. We had anticipated challenges around staff converting from a lecturing contract to a training contract because it doesn’t provide the same amount of holiday.

But in fact, we have had a lot of people directly applying to the centre, rather than transferring contracts. The majority of our trainers at CETC are new, from industry, and haven’t had to adjust from having more than 10 weeks’ holiday a year.

While all these changes mean that it is longer before apprentices spend time on a real working site, they still engage regularly with industry; engage with employers who are invited to support training; act as mentors; and check our teaching practices and skills being taught.

When the apprentices complete the 20-week block with us and are with the employer on site, we send a professional coach out to assess them at work. Once one group of apprentices have completed their training with us, we welcome another cohort: we are continuously feeding the industry around us with work-ready apprentices.

Despite the big changes we have made to our course - having developed it in partnership with employers and maintained such strong industry ties - we have not come across any major challenges.

Perhaps the only initial issue was getting the buy-in from the experienced skilled workers on the sites, as at first some were not that keen to allow our apprentices to take on high-level tasks.

But as soon as they saw the apprentices in action and the value of the skills that they had built up over the 20-week course before arriving on site, they recognised the benefit of the new programme.

One other issue that can hamper us is the weather: we need to be mindful that if the site is flooded or icy in the winter - or, equally, if temperatures are too high in the summer - it is not safe for our apprentices. When running a programme at those high-risk times, we make sure that we’ve got other exercises lined up for students to complete to ensure that no teaching time is wasted.

Overall, the impact that the new programme has had on the apprentices and the employers has been outstanding. Our retention figures for apprenticeships staying on site have gone up hugely because they are not doing menial jobs but getting a chance to put their skills into practice straight away.

This means that they are valued members of the team and progress through the apprenticeship well while developing the skill set that the industry so urgently needs, helping to ensure that they have the best chance possible of a long and successful career.

Although we are not solely led by the employers we work with, we have very strong bonds with them. They help to inform us with our decisions moving forward with our training course and apprenticeships: if there is a shortage of a particular skill, we build that into the programmes and ensure that our apprentices are suited for their industry.

Ultimately, the entire programme is designed around the needs of the employers - and they are recruiting high-skilled workers, trained exactly how they want, as a result.

It is easy to see how this model of delivery could be replicated across other industries, especially the automotive and engineering industries. We are here to support the industry and if we can provide advice to anyone interested then we will.

Above all else, we would tell providers to focus and build upon that employer relationship: allow your employers to tell you what they want and listen to them. They are your biggest asset: without the employers, you have got no apprentices, after all.

David Richardson is the director of Fareham’s College’s Civil Engineering Training Centre

This article originally appeared in the 24 April 2020 issue under the headline “Constructing a course fit for industry”