There can’t be many apprenticeships where you get to try out your employer’s flight simulator – but that’s exactly what happened to our young employees taken on under a new scheme set up at the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. “I landed perfectly but somehow fell off the edge,” recalls Jasmine Fernley, one of 11 apprentices that make up the Faculty’s first intake. The Faculty is expected to lose 25% of its technical staff to retirement in the next five years. The School of Physics and Astronomy alone could lose four people in three years and there’s even a glass blower who produces the bespoke vessels needed in the School of Chemistry, who will one day pass on his unique baton. Back on the flight simulator, Roseanna Byrne “crashed” and Simbiat Sanni was “nowhere near the runway”, but for Liam Baguley it was the highlight of his first four months in post. Hopefully the simulation of working at “one of the top universities for science,” as Liam put it, will be a much smoother ride with tangible and exciting results.
Fulfilling career
All the apprentices were looking for a fulfilling career. They spotted the posts – advertised to local youngsters – on the National Apprenticeship Scheme website and, having landed the job, started work in October. Four of the apprentices, training to be lab technicians, work on campus four days a week and go to Trafford College one day a week. The remaining seven, training to be mechanical technicians, are working through several modules at the college before starting work on campus later this year. But all wear Faculty sweatshirts during their working hours; had an induction and came to the Faculty Christmas party – so they are in every sense members of staff. “I have really enjoyed all the activities, setting up equipment, making different concentrations of chemicals, and going round the different Schools and seeing what they all do,” Simbiat, 18, from New Moston, says. “It has been much easier than I thought getting to know the staff here,” Jasmine, 20, from Ashton-under-Lyne, adds. “They are so friendly and helpful and accepting of us.”
Shining stars
Colin Baines, Head of School Administration in the School of Physics and Astronomy, who set the scheme up with his technical managers network, is rightly proud of the scheme – and the apprentices and their mentors in the Faculty. “I started the technical managers network so we could all discuss what was happening across the Faculty, down to what equipment was around, in our various Schools,” Colin explains. “The apprentice scheme was borne out of that. We had apprenticeship schemes before but we didn’t really take sufficient care of them – we would bring them in, they would go into one School and learn how to use one or two machines in a big machine shop, and that was it; they didn’t move around the Schools or see what was happening in the rest of the University. “This scheme is different – we are taking the apprentices around the Faculty so they can see what the different Schools do in all areas of our business and we are making sure they are fully trained before we expect them to be a positive resource. “I researched apprenticeships elsewhere, with visits to Bentley in Crewe and GE Energy in Kidsgrove, to see what worked best. “We’re also very happy with Trafford College’s input, who won the contract after getting a unanimous vote from the technical managers network. “The network has been key, they have been shining stars. We worked really hard to get this done, and to a tight schedule, because we really believed in it. “We had to make sure the whole Faculty had buy in – we needed that for it to succeed – and our staff have proved great mentors. “I am very proud of the result.”
Buzzing campus
Colin started work as a technician at Jodrell Bank and spent 24 years there, working his way through the ranks, before taking a post on campus, and feels the apprentices reflect that career pathway. They have come to address a pressing need at the University and will have the hands-on, practical training that will make them a real asset to us. They in turn will come to work on a buzzing campus and enjoy a fulfilling career in a Faculty that boasts in excess of 20 Nobel Prize winners amongst its former and current staff in a world-leading institution. The flight simulator was only the start of it!
Reproduced from the February 2014 edition of the University of Manchester staff magazine, unilife. Photography by Jason Lock.