Apprenticeships England
Gower College Swansea is one of Wales’ leading organisations in the delivery of apprenticeships, we have a strong background in adult education and have worked with thousands of students in Wales and now England.
We are on the Register of Approved Training Providers (RoATP) to deliver apprenticeships to English levy paying organisations. Our qualification achievement rates for 18/19 (latest validated data available) are excellent at 94.6% with 81.4% timely achievement.
Awards Apprentice benefits Employer benefits Sub-contractors Apply now
Apprenticeship Awards 2023
This year’s Apprenticeship Awards took place on Monday 6 February 2023.
Award winning
Gower College Swansea has been shortlisted for two UK Annual Apprenticeship Conference (AAC) Awards 2022:
- SEND Champion of the Year (Provider) 2022
- Health and Care Apprenticeship Provider of the Year 2022
Last year, the College won the 2021 UK Times Educational Supplement (TES) FE Award for Apprenticeship Programme of the Year.
We were also crowned winners in two categories in the UK Annual AAC Awards in 2021.
- Engineering and Manufacturing Apprenticeship Provider of the Year 2021
- Digital Apprenticeship Provider of the Year 2021
Prior to this, we previously won two categories in the UK AAC Awards in 2019.
- Health and Science Apprenticeship Provider of the Year 2019
- Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Apprenticeships, Steve Williams 2019
Apprentice benefits
Your benefits
- You will be supported by qualified and experienced tutors
- Have access to a learner coach, careers information and advice and guidance
- Access to our library services
- Access to Smart Assessor, an ePortfolio, so that you can work more efficiently
- Eligibility to apply for an Apprenticeship Extra NUS student discount card
- Access to Moodle and Canvas learning resources for your studies.
Off the job training
You will be required to complete a minimum of 20% of your working time in off the job training (OTJ) as part of your apprenticeship. This will provide you with the required knowledge, skills and behaviours across the apprenticeship programme.
OTJ is new learning undertaken during your normal working hours which is directly relevant to the apprenticeship qualification that you are undertaking.
Planning for this will include one to one learning, workshops, online learning, shadowing, coaching and mentoring. The 20% may be undertaken on a regular day per week, or planned in block release sessions, whichever best meets yours and your employer needs.
Smart Assessor
Smart Assessor is an online system that tracks every detail of your journey at the click of a button.
You can
- Upload evidence for your assessor to view and mark
- View your learning plan showing all your appointments, targets and reviews
- Access the dashboard which shows your progress and provides access to course resources
- Provide feedback for your assessor after each appointment
- Access your ePortfolio for seven years after completion of your qualification to show prospective employers.
Canvas
Canvas is a virtual learning environment which allows you to access course materials, attend remote lectures, upload assignments and receive feedback/grades. It is available 24/7 and can be accessed from any device with an internet connection.
You can
- Access presentations in a variety of multimedia formats
- Access plugins for Office 365, Google Docs, YouTube, Planet eStream and Twitter
- Undertake live classes via the integrated Big Blue Button conferencing system
- Access peer to peer chat rooms and discussion forums
- Access and create interactive quizzes
- Upload assignments with the Turnitin plagiarism checker.
Your wellbeing
We are mindful of your wellbeing and have a range of resources and tutorials which can be accessed on our Canvas and Moodle platforms.
Togetherall offers a safe and anonymous community to connect with from anywhere at any time 24/7, 365 days a year, whether you need to get something off your chest, express yourself creatively or learn how to manage your mental health.
Careers, advice and guidance
National Careers Service offers free advice and guidance to help you with your courses and work. Online career tools and skills assessments will help you learn more about the careers that interest you.
You can also contact your learning coach who will be able to put you in touch with our employability team who can give you help to find employment or career progression opportunities.
Vacancies
If you are looking for an apprenticeship you can search and apply via the find an apprenticeship website for vacancies in England.
Employer benefits
Your benefits
Apprenticeships are nationally recognised qualifications designed to provide students with additional skills, knowledge and behaviours in the workplace.
Apprenticeships are approved and certificated by the Institute for Apprenticeships and are regulated and governed by the Education Skills Funding Agency and Ofsted.
- Increased productivity and bottom line
- Improved staff morale
- Better skills base within the company
- Funding/grants available in some cases
- Reduced training and recruitment costs
- Ability to fill skills gaps through recruiting new talent or upskilling existing staff.
Initial stages
We will meet with you to develop our knowledge of your organisational and training needs. Our aim is that through the delivery of quality apprenticeship training, your employees will gain the knowledge, skills and behaviours to develop within their career.
During the initial engagement we will discuss qualification options to ensure the skills gaps within your organisations are mapped to the right training and apprenticeship programme(s).
Qualification selection
This will either be a new style apprenticeship standard that has been approved for delivery, or, if there is no standard available you will be advised of the framework options as an alternative.
The learner’s current level of ability, along with their job role will be considered to ensure there are significant training gaps to justify apprenticeship training.
Meeting your needs
Depending on the apprenticeship that your learners undertake, the content of their journey will vary dependent on their baseline knowledge, skills and behaviours.
Understanding how your organisation operates and gaining an insight to your key business drivers, will support us to plan the programme effectively. We work with you to ensure all mandatory components are included.
Relationship management
To ensure that everyone has the best possible experience, we continually review the service offering and delivery.
This includes:
- Quality assurance by the internal quality assurance team which includes learner, manager and employer feedback interviews
- Employer and learner surveys (online and by phone)
- Focus groups.
The outcomes of these quality checks will be communicated to the organisation lead during improvement meetings and quarterly reviews.
We have a large apprenticeship team on hand should you wish to discuss the progress of your cohort outside of set review meetings. We are here to support you and your learners every step of the way.
Apprenticeship funding and levy
The way apprenticeships in England are funded was amended in April 2017 to reflect the needs of employers and to ensure the skills of learners were reflective of the needs of work based learning across the country.
Based on the size and annual wage bill of your organisation the funding streams for your apprentices will vary and will be categorised into one of the funding bands detailed below.
Fully funded qualifications
Co-funded with employer contribution
Digital account
Funds within your digital account can only be used to fund apprenticeships. These can be used for either the development of newly recruited apprentices or the upskilling of your current workforce.
All apprenticeships are nationally recognised, accredited qualifications, designed alongside employers within your industry to ensure maximum impact from the training your apprentices receive.
All apprenticeships include English and maths functional skills and all learners are required to complete 20% off the job learning.
In England, apprenticeships are moving from apprenticeship frameworks to apprenticeship standards, which include End Point Assessment (EPA) by an independently approved end point assessment organisation.
EPA qualifies the quality of the training delivered and ensures all learners on approved apprenticeship standards are able to demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge, skills and behaviours adequately prior to certification.
EPA is only applicable to those learners completing apprenticeship standards. Framework qualifications are not subject to final assessment in this format and will continue to be verified through internal quality assurance and external verification.
Sub-contractors
We engage with sub-contractors to better meet customer needs and to do the following:
- Work with providers who effectively reach priority learners in the community and who can demonstrate positive outcomes
- Provide access to, or engagement with, a new range of customers
- Support another provider to develop capacity/quality
- Provide additional delivery
- Work with providers that offer sector specific priorities supporting local, regional and national skills agendas.
- All sub-contractors will be subject to the College’s due diligence process.
The College retains a management fee which covers a proportion of the direct costs associated with operating and quality assuring sub-contract provision.
If the sub-contractor is a subsidiary of Gower College Swansea, service charges will be applied through the College standard annual budgeting process. This reflects the subsidiary as being an internal business unit of the College and as such, services such as governance, quality and compliance are charged centrally.
For the 2022/23 academic year, Gower College Swansea will not be sub-contracting to any other providers (England only).
The 2022/23 WBL Sub-Contracting Fees and Charges Policy was ratified at the Governing Body Corporation Board meeting on 30 June 2022.