Be my Guest… City of Bristol College
The City of Bristol College has partnered with LEEA to offer its Accredited apprenticeship scheme, open to anyone in England aged 16+ who wants to pursue a career in lifting equipment.
The qualification covers a range of complex engineering tasks where applicants learn about engineering materials, mechanical principles, and how health & safety must be applied to the lifting industry, as well as all the technical knowledge that is required to successfully operate as a lifting engineer.
On successful completion of the end point assessment, applicants are awarded an ST0872 Lifting Equipment Technician – Apprenticeship Training Certificate, which enables those working in the lifting industry or those who are looking to pursue lifting engineering as a career to gain knowledge, practical experience certification often sought by employers, including: the LEEA Foundation Certificate; LEEA Lifting Accessories Diploma (LAC) and LEEA Manual Lifting Machines Diploma (MLM).
Katherine Woodward manages all apprenticeship programs at the City of Bristol College. She explained that LEEA contacted the college because it wanted to create an apprentice standard which involves its in-house qualifications.
She said in the UK employers have to pay an Apprenticeship Levy, a tax where businesses with an annual wage bill of more than £3m must pay half a percent of their gross payroll to HMRC, but now they can spend that levy on apprenticeship delivery with certain providers.
“Previously, people who needed to put their members of staff through LEEA qualifications had to pay for it out of their own pocket, but now they have the opportunity to use their tax levy, which they're paying into anyway, to fund them, getting the qualifications they need. It's an easier way of being more profitable in their organisation rather than paying out lots of money for training and if employers don't use their levy, they will lose it as a tax. So it really is beneficial that they get onboard and use their levy for these apprenticeships,” she said.
Chris Pippen, apprenticeship lifting programme manager, City of Bristol College is the lecturer, trainer, and delivers all the content on the course.
“I deliver the Lifting Equipment Technician Level 3. It's typically a 24-month apprenticeship program and once you've completed the apprenticeship, you have a three-month window to complete your Gateway and EPA (End Point Assessment). The training is delivered as an online programme so there's no geographical exclusion as long as you're within England and the powers of the levy that can be funded,” he said.
“Once you've completed the apprenticeship and all your KSBs (Knowledge Skills & Behaviours) these are numbered and put into your portfolio. Once your portfolio is complete, we contact EPAO and then you go into Gateway and the End Point Assessment, where along within the apprenticeship we also enrol the apprentices onto the LEEA courses; LAC (LEEA Lifting Accessories Diploma), MLM (LEEA Manual Lifting Machines Diploma) and FOU (LEEA Foundation Certificate). Those three courses get delivered online also.”
Luke Hastings, business development manager for apprenticeships at City of Bristol College said if you're involved in lifting, or if you're a lifting company and you're looking to upskill your workforce, apprenticeships are a really good way of doing that and earning some money whilst you're learning these key skills.
“This course is aimed at any company within England who are involved in lifting. We offer recruitment services for free as well as being able to enrol current staff. So, if you have anyone in your company in England who is looking to upskill or you're looking to get a specialist into the company and train them using the apprenticeship levy. Then get in touch,” he added.
“Apprenticeships are offered to anyone of any age. It doesn't matter how old you are, we actually have an apprentice on our programme who is 70 years old, and all the apprentices are progressing really well.”
The newly launched rolling programme started in January, and anyone can join at any time. This is then followed by a three-month window, organised by LEIA Assessments, the EPAO (End Point Assessment Organisation) and the company and the apprentice, to carry out the three assessment methods, not in any particular order.
Click HERE to watch the video on LEEA’s YouTube channel.
Click HERE for more information and to register on the program.
