What a busy Scottish Apprenticeship Week (7-11 March) it’s been for Forth Valley College!
On Monday the College led with the story of former Bricklaying Modern Apprentice Daniel Courtney and the refreshing and dynamic new training approach taken by his current employer Persimmon Homes.
There followed two high profile visits involving FVC delegations. The first saw FVC Business Development Client Manager Caroline Hogg and Engineering and Science Operations Manager William Forrest join MSP Alexander Stewart and Rowena McConkey from Skills Development Scotland, who all visited the OI glass plant in Alloa for a cracking tour of one of Europe’s biggest bottle making factories.
Later that afternoon Forth Ports in Grangemouth was the venue for another high profile visit by FVC’s new Director of Commercialisation and Skills Colin McMurray, who joined Caroline once again and Chris Nisbet a College Business Development Partner at the facility.
They were delighted to join local MSP Michelle Thomson as a group of Forth Ports MAs who developed some fantastic ideas through the recent Fuel Change Challenge, gave a presentation of their work. The visitors were then given a tour of Forth ports training and simulator area.
On Tuesday morning news of a fact-finding mission from the Federation of Master Builders to the Alloa Campus, where FMB’s Scotland Director found out more about Modern Apprenticeships for a blog, from Bricklaying MA Liam Adamson and his employer Peter Archibald from Haldane Construction Services Ltd. FVC’s Business Partner Julie Hayward was also on hand to lead a tour of the Campus.
Earlier in the morning Hospitality Foundation Apprentices posed for photographs at the Inchyra Grange Hotel in Grangemouth, where they were preparing an afternoon tea for the Strathcarron Hospice shop volunteers, as a thanks you for all their efforts in this their 40th anniversary year.
Later that day, it was revealed that a total of 17 businesses, charities and organisations have partnered up with Forth Valley College to offer Foundation Apprentices placements to help with their studies. The excellent stakeholder engagement has seen a total of 21 senior phase secondary school pupils in the Forth Valley area gain valuable workplace experience to enhance their progression on the popular and well respected FA course qualifications in Business Skills, IT Hardware and Scientific Technologies.
On Wednesday Forth Valley College announced it had won a tender to take on eleven new Modern Apprentices in engineering at short notice following the closure of a training organisation in Grangemouth.
Pipework engineering specialist company Normand and Thomson called on support from the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB), who also fund the apprentices, to help secure FVC as their new training provider.
Construction MAs also experienced a virtual reality extravaganza at the FVC Falkirk Campus by using specialist digital simulator kit that will prepare them for using the real thing in the workshop.
Later that evening a partnership initiative between Forth Valley College and Fuel Change just missed out on a top award at the Skills Development Scotland (SDS) Apprenticeship Awards.
FVC and Fuel Change were down to the final three in the category of Innovation in Learning Provision – up against Esteem Training Limited and the Care Team at Dundee and Angus College – but were pipped to the top prize at an online ceremony.
Digital Technology Modern Apprenticeships were the focus on Thursday. As Scottish Apprenticeship Week highlights best practice across Scotland – Forth Valley College showed how Digital Technology Modern Apprentices (MAs) are benefiting from hands on workplace experience with help from their College work based assessors.
Due to the growth of the IT sector and demand for digital skills, the one-year work-based MA programme is proving to be the perfect course to equip trainees with a recognisable qualification and desirable skills, based either in the IT Support or Cyber Security fields.
Trillium Flow Technologies in Alloa was the venue for another great site visit for Caroline Hogg and William Forrest on Thursday to see how their MAs were getting on during. As always there was great support too from ECITB.
The last day of Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2022 saw FVC’s new Director of Commercialisation and Skills, Colin McMurray and Caroline Hogg pop into AG Barr in Cumbernauld to quench a thirst for knowledge on this new MA training partnership.
Colin and Caroline, rounded off the week with a trip to Denny to build an even stronger relationship with Alan Harris who owns Alpa Joiners. He is pictured here with his growing team of MAs.
