As part of National Apprenticeship Week, we caught up with Ryan who was one of our Health and Social Care Apprentices to ask him to share his experience as an Apprentice and the how the experience helped to progress in his career.
“Deciding on a career change from retail to working in an operating theatre, I needed to enable myself with skills that would help me provide the best patient care such as the care principles, manual handling and infection control. It was mainly a vocational style of learning, we spent a few days in the classroom studying the foundations and then were signposted towards what we needed to learn through on-the-job training”.
Ryan praised his tutor for helping him succeed “I had a great tutor that supported me throughout the course, through various types of assessment such as observations, small projects and questions and answer sessions to build up a picture of my competencies”. It was important too for Ryan to make sure his core skills were up to date “…after leaving school 25 years ago with few qualifications it was also refreshing to update my numeracy and English qualifications”.
“An Apprenticeship is an excellent opportunity for those who learn through doing rather than reading, it's great for school leavers who just want to get straight into the workplace, and especially for people like me, who are looking for a career change but cannot give up full time employment to go into education.”
“It is thanks to my tutor Lanie and the Bucks College Group who helped me gain my Level 3 Diploma in Healthcare, Care certificate and Functional Skills that I could apply and I am now a student at university undertaking a BSc in Operating Department Practice.”
Alongside Ryan’s studies he’s now learning on-the-job (another apprenticeship) which includes working in the operating theatre, assisting the anaesthetist in preparing and putting the patient asleep, preparing them for theatres, monitoring them during operations and also learning how to support the surgical team.
To find out more about apprenticeships at the Bucks College Group visit https://www.buckscollegegroup.ac.uk/apprenticeships-and-traineeships
