New College Swindon highlights “roll-on, roll-off” options as GCSE results are released
Many apprenticeships can be enrolled in all year round
Students in Swindon and across the country are taking one last trip to their secondary schools today to collect their GCSE results.
Many of them will go on to study at New College Swindon - but the college is reminding us that there are other options, too.
While a lot of students will be opting to do A Levels, practical routes like apprenticeships are increasingly gaining importance.
Mandy Buxton, Head of the Business Development Team at New College Swindon, told Greatest Hits Radio: “The government are really pushing and striving for them at the moment and we have a massive skills gap in the UK and apprenticeships are the way forward for that.
“I’ve been supporting apprenticeships for seven to eight years now and they are a fantastic way to get into work and to support what is going on in the economy.”
Earlier this year, the government decided that students would no longer need to pass their Level 2 Maths and English qualifications if they are 19 or older.
Instead, it is now up to businesses to decide whether they believe that skills in the two subjects are necessary to complete the course.
The Department of Education is hoping that the measures will get around 10,000 additional apprentices to complete their apprenticeships this year.
At the same time, New College Swindon is trying to become more attractive for apprentices by broadening their offers.
“Apprenticeships are forever growing and they’re growing in all kinds of different industries”, added Ms Buxton.
“We really do adopt that, so we explore new apprenticeships every year. We’re now looking to jump into the sustainability side.
“So now we’re exploring the sustainability options within apprenticeships. And that is forever growing as well because students are hungry for that, given the climate that we’re in at the moment.”
Everyone who is still unsure about what their next step will is being assured that they can take their time figuring it out.
Ms Buxton explained: “Those people that want to start in September, obviously we’ve got about five weeks to go. However, we are open all year round.
“Our apprenticeships are what we call roll-on, roll-off which means you can join a lot of apprenticeships throughout the year.
“What makes it so good for students are the flexibility options because not everyone decides today what it is what they want to do. They might decide in a couple of weeks what they want to do and that’s when we’re always present and they can join us at any time.”