Apprentice parent & guardian information
Official apprenticeships, fully funded
Official apprenticeships, fully funded
Apprentice parent information:
Many of our apprentices are just starting out in their working lives and we’ve created this page for the parents of aspiring digital apprentices. If you’re over 18 and making decisions for yourself or you’re an employed professional enrolling onto a digital apprenticeship then this page might not be relevant to you.
We're not a college, but we're 100% official
NowSkills is an independent training provider (ITP). We access the same government funding as a college, with a direct contract to deliver apprenticeships with the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
In order to maintain this contract, the outcomes for our apprentices, our contract performance, our directors, and our financial health are all stringently reviewed.
Just like a college, our quality of teaching and learning and the progression of our learners are inspected by Ofsted.
This external monitoring means that you can have confidence that we will deliver the very best apprenticeships we can to progress your young adult.
So why not just go to a college?
If your young adult wants a career in digital, then we’re better than a college. Colleges play a vital role in delivering a wide range of education to their local communities, but we focus on one thing: digital.
At NowSkills we concentrate 100% of our efforts on digital apprenticeships. Our programmes are delivered by digital tutors with real commercial digital experience who can stretch and challenge your talented young adult, set high expectations for success, and provide assistance and challenge so they can achieve to the best of their ability.
The key to a successful digital apprenticeship is finding a committed local employer who understands digital apprenticeships.
NowSkills has an IT-savvy employer engagement team that works with employers, visits them, identifies synergies between their values and ours and supports them to offer your young adult progression. Employers need the next generation of digital talent to join their teams and can offer apprentices some fantastic career opportunities.
We rate our employers based on the opportunity they can offer our apprentices and their record in supporting their progression. We decline to work with approximately 20% of employers who want to recruit an apprentice for a variety of reasons.
The main reason being we feel the role on offer will not progress your young adult’s digital skills.
The best local apprentice employers with a commitment to apprenticeships appreciate NowSkills’ understanding of the sector and how our teams support them.
Our stringent employer selection process, coupled with our dedication only to digital apprenticeships and our commercially experienced delivery team means that NowSkills will deliver your young adult a stand-out digital apprenticeship that will equip them with the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours to embark on a meaningful and rewarding career.
A safe place of work
Our tutors will visit your young adult in their workplace and meet the prospective line managers and other senior managers. We do this to ensure the role continues to be suitable, the place of work is safe and welcoming, and that the culture of the business fits with the demands of an apprenticeship.
If at any time you or your young adult has any safeguarding concerns we have a safeguarding team who will respond immediately.
Details of our safeguarding policy and specific training are delivered to apprentices at the beginning of their apprenticeship. You can read more about safeguarding here.
What if things go wrong?
Occasionally things don’t work out. We’re very good at making matches for job roles to apprentices, however, things do go wrong sometimes.
We’ve all taken a job that wasn’t quite right: Perhaps the role isn’t what was expected, perhaps there’s a personality clash with a colleague or the hiring line manager has left the department. Whatever happens, we’re there to support your young adult and provide them with the appropriate support and apprenticeship information.
The key action is for them to let their tutor know so we know there’s a problem, your young adult will also have had interaction with our recruitment team, so they can contact them too. If the incident is serious you may need to notify our safeguarding team.
Most times we can resolve a problem. However, if an apprentice needs to find a new employer, although rare, then we will support them through this process.
