Interior Trim Center Apprentice Review

As an interior trim apprentice I spend my days learning the large variety of job roles within the interior trim center, this includes sewing, covering, planning and many more. the job roles I learn vary from hands on practical jobs to office jobs. I also get the opportunity to learn roles from outside of interior trim center. I am expected to learn and keep record of processes to complete my standards work to pass my course.

I have learnt a variety of new skills both at college and at work doing things I would never had had the opportunity to do outside of this apprenticeship; for example at college I complete an upholstery course which I would never have even thought about had I not done the apprenticeship. I have also developed existing skills, for example sewing. I have sewn for most of my life however have never used an industrial machine which I have learnt to use at Work, I have also learnt new sewing skills both from work and college which I didn't use/ know before.

I thoroughly enjoy my programme as a whole, however I don't overly enjoy the college specific side for a number of reasons. I feel there is a lack of communication from the college on what is expected of us in terms of our standards and feel there is too much weight put on our practical work which overall doesn't count massively towards our end grade.

As mentioned before, the college side of my course isn't very well organized and everything to do with our standards gets left until last minute ( the standards are the main thing we get graded on) however during the time I've been here, I've never been stuck without a placement at work and almost always have something to do. That being said, I have had placements that I've turned up to and they've not prepared anything for me to do so I've either been left doing to silly little jobs no one else wants or I've had to find my own things to do with my time.

I believe I receive a high level of support from my employer, especially within the last few months. If I have an questions or concerns an answer is always given within a reasonable time scale. more recently I have also started to receive feedback on my progress as an individual from my employer which is very useful in helping me to improve and develop in my role.

This area of my course could use some improvement. While working towards my level 2 standards we didn't get told about what was expected of us in order to pass until 2 weeks before everything was due in, and when we asked them what was expected we were always given very vague responses and often left more clueless than before we asked. For the level 3 this has been improved slightly however I still feel the college need to put more focus on this aspect of the apprenticeship and communicate the information with the students and our employer.

I personally do not feel a qualification in upholstery helps me at all with the role I do at work. There is very little overlap in the things we learn at college to the things we learn at work. I feel changing the course entirely to something more manufacturing or management based would suit better.

We have activities at both work and college that are available to us, I personally don't know exactly what is available at work as currently it is not very well advertised however I know this is being worked on. College has the standard clubs and extra curricular activities that you'd expect to see.

Yes

I personally feel I have learnt a lot on this apprenticeship, not just in terms of sewing and manufacturing related topics but also in ways of personal development, for example I have always struggled with confidence but feel I have now developed that well. For this reason I would recommend this to a friend as it's not just an academic apprenticeship but also a good place to learn life skills.

I would say come into this apprenticeship with an open mind. what you get from this apprenticeship what you put into it. don't expect to get anywhere if you put the bare minimum effort into your work and employment. dont be discouraged by how long the application progress is as it is worth it.