Four small businesses have been able to take on their first AMRC Training Centre apprentice thanks to a donation from Harworth Group and Sheffield Business Park.
Four new apprentices have now started their training at the AMRC Training Centre at Waverley (Rotherham) and have been employed by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) from the local region that wanted to grow their business, but hadn’t previously explored an AMRC trained apprentice.
Harworth Group and Sheffield Business Park made this possible by donating prize money from a Lambert Smith Hampton Enterprise Award presented to them last year for demonstrating how the proposed Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District across the region will make the most of the government’s devolution programme.
They matched the £15,000 prize money to create a £30,000 fund to enable local young people that are not in education, employment or training, to get apprenticeships with local advanced manufacturers and a place at the AMRC Training Centre.
The fund has now achieved its aim to give a total of eight SMEs who might not have otherwise been able to afford to train an apprentice, financial support by funding half of the apprentices’ wages in the first year and covering training costs.
The apprentices were employed to undertake the AMRC Training Centre’s Flexible Apprenticeship Programme, launched in March 2016 and tailored exclusively to meet the needs of small businesses.
Delivering the same high-quality training as the established full-time 25 week model, the apprentices receive intensive masterclasses staggered over a period of 16 weeks. The programme can be particularly valuable to SMEs as it allows the apprentice to be with their employer for several weeks at a time in between training; contributing to the performance of the business from the start.
Group communications & partnerships manager at Harworth Group, Iain Thomson explained: “This is the core of what the AMRC does so well – delivering the pipeline of skilled workers required to deliver the UK’s long-term economic growth.”
Sheffield-based Tribosonics design and manufacture ultrasonic measurement and monitoring devices, and has recently employed its first two AMRC apprentices. Joe Burns (16, from Mosborough) has joined the company as a new project engineer apprentice in Electrical Maintenance on the Flexible Apprenticeship Programme.
Burns commented: “[My apprenticeship] has allowed me to experience working in an engineering environment while also learning new skills, gaining knowledge, as well as earning a good wage.
“I’ve learnt more in my short time here than I could have at college, all while contributing to the success and growth of the business. I would strongly recommend an apprenticeship to anyone no matter what field of work you want to go into.”
