The benefits of blending your apprenticeship program

Shannon Layton, Campaign Manager

Whether you are an Employer Provider or a Main Provider, you may have had to recently redesign your apprenticeship delivery strategy.

Like many other providers who deliver apprenticeships, the impact of Covid-19 has meant that you may have had to reduce your face-to-face delivery and find more creative ways for engaging with your apprentices. This may include delivering more online content or more virtual interaction. If this is the case, read our top tips for including online content as part of your program.

Our top 10 benefits of blending your apprenticeship program:

1. It allows you to include expert content

As an apprenticeship provider, you can include content that has been designed by industry experts to form part of your delivery program and count towards the 20% off the job requirements. We incur the costs of commissioning these specialists, so you don’t have to.

2. You can promote the flexibility of your delivery model

Online content can be accessed by the apprentice at a time that is convenient to them and also can be built into your wider delivery program at a time that is convenient for you.

3. The apprentice can recap on any key learning at any time throughout the program

The apprentice can even revisit any of the online content at any time throughout the entire apprenticeship, which means they can revise key learning points before applying the newly learned skill in the workplace.

4. You can easily adapt your program according to the needs of your customer

Each apprenticeship route commissioned has different requirements and seeks to respond to differing needs; by using online content you have the option to create a bespoke apprenticeship offer according to the needs of the customer, business or the apprentice.

5.You can have a bespoke delivery program to be specific to the needs of the apprentice

Blended delivery allows easy flex of the ‘learning pathway’ for the individual apprentice. If it is identified that an apprentice needs further support in a specific subject area, this can easily be added to their pathway from the vast amount of content that is currently available.

6. It ensures you are Ofsted compliant, which means there is evidence of recognition of the apprentices prior learning

Ofsted requires that all training providers assess an individual’s prior learning before they start an apprenticeship to establish their baseline. A blended delivery model allows this information to be used to create a bespoke ‘learning pathway’ for the apprentice that will deliver transformational learning that delivers real growth and stretch.

7. It provides robust analytics for evidencing the 20% off the job learning

Learning Pool has a reporting function attached to all content to demonstrate how much time the apprentice has engaged with that learning activity. This can be downloaded and evidenced as part of the requirement to achieve 20% off the job learning.

8. It allows you to make more effective use of your delivery teams

As a provider, once the content has been created, it can be built into your delivery plan and requires very little human intervention. This will free your delivery teams to increase their contact time with a greater number of apprentices’. Efficient use of blended delivery can increase your capacity to deliver apprenticeships by 100%.

9. Customization of content

Online content can easily be customized to reflect the vision and values of any provider. You can add content to reflect the ‘way we do things around here’.

10. A wider audience reach

As it’s online, it’s at any time of day or night, it can be made available to a wider audience thus increasing your reach.

Conclusion

At Learning Pool we already have a vast amount of content that is designed, available and mapped to the Apprenticeship Standards and will deliver clear benefits to your apprenticeship training. Get in touch if you would like to find out more.