Supporting an apprentice
If you're new to supporting and training an apprentice, to get the best outcome for your business, you'll need to take some extra things into account that you might not have experienced before.
How people learn
Not everybody learns the same way. Every learner is an individual and the way an apprentice learns their trade on the job is different for each tangata.
It’s helpful for you to talk to your apprentice about how they learn best. Some people prefer to see something demonstrated before they do it while others might like to have a go at something themselves first, as long as it’s safe to do so.
Knowing how each other likes to work and learn will contribute to good progress in an apprenticeship.
Learner support
There might be times when an apprentice needs some extra help to get through their apprenticeship. The best way to learn a trade is by doing the job, and this includes being able to read accurately and write clearly to communicate. If an apprentice is finding these hard BCITO Te Pūkenga can organise a literacy and numeracy aromatawai which will tell them if they would benefit from extra help with literacy and numeracy for the job and their future as a qualified trade professional. Your BCITO Te Pūkenga Training Advisor will assist with organising this.
Sometimes there are tough times in an apprentice’s life, and it’s hard to make progress when other things are getting in the way. A BCITO Te Pūkenga Training Advisor can help to put the employer or the apprentice in touch with other kinds of support, such as financial advice or someone to kōrero to about personal problems. A BCITO Te Pūkenga Training Advisor is a useful person to talk to for advice about where to go for all sorts of help.
Your role as Evaluator
The person who evaluates your apprentice's learning could be you or another person from your team. Someone who can provide accurate information about the skills and knowledge demonstrated by the apprentice on a day-to-day basis. The evaluator only needs to consider the apprentice's performance in relation to their own company's work activities. Evaluators also help verify that information documented by the apprentice is authentic and it meets standards of commercial competence.
