Member Article

Digital Apprenticeship Academies Allow Sports Sector to Get Back to Business

Leading sports apprenticeship provider, Mitre Group, has taken its innovative Apprenticeship Academies online to ensure its education support for clubs, academies, local authorities, schools and sports partnerships continues uninterrupted, despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis.

Using a range of online technology, including Mitre’s custom-built digital learning platforms, employees can keep studying towards programmes ranging from community sport and coaching, to customer services, leadership and management. This has enabled students to access course content via their smartphones and tablets at any time to give flexibility as staff working patterns change and evolve.

Peer-to-peer learning with apprentices from other organisations around the UK continues to be an important and popular part of Mitre’s programmes, achieved through interactive webinars with Mitre’s expert tutors. Guest speakers covering a range of topics including mental health and wellbeing have also been delivered, with many more topics lined up over the coming months.

Working closely with end point assessment organisations, apprentices have been able to complete in a timely manner allowing them to take their next steps in their career.

“The last few months have been tough for the all the clubs and organisations we work with,” comments Jennie Bowmer, Managing Director, “we wanted to make sure that we’re still supporting their workforce development as we all adapt to changing times. Training and apprenticeships have proved a brilliant way to keep staff motivated throughout the lockdown period and provide some stability as we move towards the ‘new normal’. We know that we all face some challenging times ahead but do believe that apprenticeships can play an important role as businesses and communities rebuild.”

Burton Albion Community Trust, Middlesex Cricket Club, Derby County Community Trust, QPR Trust, Derbyshire Dales District Council and Amber Valley School Sports Partnership are just some of the organisations already taking advantage of Mitre’s apprenticeship provision to support its staff and prepare for recovery as lockdown measures are eased.

Pete Jones, Participation Manager at Middlesex Cricket commented; “The support from Mitre has been great. They have kept our staff and apprentices engaged and focussed, enabling them to keep developing their skills throughout the pandemic. They have been able to learn together and see each other on their webinars each week, and identify new ideas which can be implemented when we return. Access to their online learning platform has also been useful to add extra breadth to the apprentices’ programmes.”

Mitre is on the Governments Education and Skills Funding Agency approved Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (ROATP) and recently celebrated a ‘Good’ Ofsted grade.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dawn Spendlove .