Kevin states the number of apprentices he saw coming through just before Christmas 2020 was only marginally down so it’s good considering there was a pandemic going on, and if it hadn’t been for that I’m sure that numbers would have grown in the year. In terms of the trends we are seeing, 16-18-year-olds tend to make up about 45% of the number of apprentices across the country, with a total number nationwide of about 1200 now. Those aged between 19 and 24 make up another 45% and then those over 25 years old are the remaining 10%.

Kevin found coping with training during the COVID-19 lockdowns steady by keeping the calendar the same so that whatever cohort was due to come into the Academy for the week was hosted on Teams for the period.  Kevin has a variety of systems within the Academy and, of course with the Fire, Emergency and Security Systems Apprenticeship Standard the Academy covers the fire pathway and the security pathway within which the Academy has got intruder, access control and CCTV.  Luckily, Kevin has had some very welcome donations from manufacturers such as Pyronix and Texecom on the intruder side, BPT for access control and Hikvision on the CCTV side. There is also an e-learning suite in the Academy so apprentices can do their research and the team and Kevin can put the apprentices through online training programmes.

Read the full interview in the February 2021 edition of PSI magazine.