There are good schools out there, but more and more, year 11's are not scheduled in to visit careers events. This is usually in schools that have a 6th form and I can only assume that if a student joins an apprenticeship programme rather than stay on for 6th form, funding is lost. I have even heard from one of our apprentices that his careers teacher tried (several times) to talk him out of starting an apprenticeship, encouraging him to stay on at school.
Speaking to our apprentices, apprenticeships were hardly mentioned by their school. I attend many careers events and speak to year 10's amd 11's who have no idea what an apprenticeship is.
We do our best to get the message out there with our monthly newsletter promoting apprenticeships but Government really need to ensure that other options are offered to students as well as university.
For all of our efforts, we had one or two vacancies that we were unable to fill this year due to lack of candidates. Bearing in mind we advertise on the National Apprenticeship Service website, Indeed, our own website, create a video for each vacancy, advertise on social media and much more, it really is down to the schools to do more to promote apprenticeship programmes.
I say again, there are some good schools that work closely with us and we are very grateful for their support. Here at SIGTA, we keep on promoting the great apprenticeships that we offer from our member companies.
