Not getting contracted hours in apprenticeship

tangerine27

emsywoo123 wrote: »

Situations like this make me so so so annoyed. I wish you were my apprentice. But I do not assess hairdressing so probs not a great idea :rotfl:

Haha, you'd still probably at least attempt to train me to do stuff unlike my boss :laugh:

Thanks for the advice. Annoyingly, my assessors phone number (its her personal mobile) is in the address book at work and I'd likely be seen writing it down and asked why. What's the best way to go about talking about this situation? Should I try to talk to my boss one on one tomorrow or wait until I've phoned my assessor?

marcarm

As well as OFSTED going nuts, it is also part of the funding requirements that you have regular reviews with you, your assessor and your manager.

Can I ask if you use a paperbased portfolio or online system? Your assessor details should be included in there, but if not you can get them from the book at work and just say you have a question about one of your units.

If you call your assessor, they might be able to be there when you broach these subjects with your employer giving you some back up.

Your employer sounds horrible,if you let your provider know this will also stop them placing any more apprentices with them. There are so many employers who see apprentices as people who can be exploited, as evidenced by your sentence 'Teach me something unlike my boss'. These sort of employers want the cheap labour but are not willing to train you, something which they would have agreed to do in your apprenticeship agreement when you signed up.

You should also have been made aware of the appeals process for your provider. As said, if you get nowhere with your assessor, there will be other people in the company to talk to.

The company I work for has a person specifically for instances like this and no doubt there will be someone in your provider who will be able to help get what you are legally entitled to.

emsywoo123

tangerine27 wrote: »

Haha, you'd still probably at least attempt to train me to do stuff unlike my boss :laugh:

Thanks for the advice. Annoyingly, my assessors phone number (its her personal mobile) is in the address book at work and I'd likely be seen writing it down and asked why. What's the best way to go about talking about this situation? Should I try to talk to my boss one on one tomorrow or wait until I've phoned my assessor?

You should (I can guess what you might say to this!) be having regular 1:1/reviews/appraisals whereby you set regular targets and have a training plan. If you had these meetings with her, this would be a good time to talk about it.
Otherwise, go straight to your assessor. There is no reason you should not be able to contact her directly/have her number. Failing that, you could contact the training provider/college directly, and even if they will not give out her number (mine does, because I have a work mobile for exactly this reason) then you can leave a message and ask her to contact you and leave your number?

emsywoo123

marcarm wrote: »

As well as OFSTED going nuts, it is also part of the funding requirements that you have regular reviews with you, your assessor and your manager.

Can I ask if you use a paperbased portfolio or online system? Your assessor details should be included in there, but if not you can get them from the book at work and just say you have a question about one of your units.

If you call your assessor, they might be able to be there when you broach these subjects with your employer giving you some back up.

Your employer sounds horrible,if you let your provider know this will also stop them placing any more apprentices with them. There are so many employers who see apprentices as people who can be exploited, as evidenced by your sentence 'Teach me something unlike my boss'. These sort of employers want the cheap labour but are not willing to train you, something which they would have agreed to do in your apprenticeship agreement when you signed up.

You should also have been made aware of the appeals process for your provider. As said, if you get nowhere with your assessor, there will be other people in the company to talk to.

The company I work for has a person specifically for instances like this and no doubt there will be someone in your provider who will be able to help get what you are legally entitled to.

Here here to all of this.

Except, am I not right in thinking that reviews are no longer funding doc requirements? I know we need them for auditors, but not for funding anymore?

tangerine27

marcarm wrote: »

As well as OFSTED going nuts, it is also part of the funding requirements that you have regular reviews with you, your assessor and your manager.

Can I ask if you use a paperbased portfolio or online system? Your assessor details should be included in there, but if not you can get them from the book at work and just say you have a question about one of your units.

If you call your assessor, they might be able to be there when you broach these subjects with your employer giving you some back up.

Your employer sounds horrible,if you let your provider know this will also stop them placing any more apprentices with them. There are so many employers who see apprentices as people who can be exploited, as evidenced by your sentence 'Teach me something unlike my boss'. These sort of employers want the cheap labour but are not willing to train you, something which they would have agreed to do in your apprenticeship agreement when you signed up.

You should also have been made aware of the appeals process for your provider. As said, if you get nowhere with your assessor, there will be other people in the company to talk to.

The company I work for has a person specifically for instances like this and no doubt there will be someone in your provider who will be able to help get what you are legally entitled to.

It's an online portfolio, it's got the college details but not my assessor's details, so I'd still have to get them out of the book.
I'll definitely talk to my assessor about this, I just didn't know whether to say anything to my boss tomorrow at work about my lack of hours?
Thank you again everyone x

tangerine27

emsywoo123 wrote: »

You should (I can guess what you might say to this!) be having regular 1:1/reviews/appraisals whereby you set regular targets and have a training plan. If you had these meetings with her, this would be a good time to talk about it.
Otherwise, go straight to your assessor. There is no reason you should not be able to contact her directly/have her number. Failing that, you could contact the training provider/college directly, and even if they will not give out her number (mine does, because I have a work mobile for exactly this reason) then you can leave a message and ask her to contact you and leave your number?

In my reviews my assessor gives me a training plan that my tutor at the college has written up for me but as I said this is in the reception area in front of clients so when she casually says to me "is everything going alright in the salon?" I still can't really say "actually no I'm having some problems" Then once I've finished my boss will go over and talk to my assessor, to this day I've still got no idea what they talk about or what my boss has says about me.

marcarm

emsywoo123 wrote: »

Here here to all of this.

Except, am I not right in thinking that reviews are no longer funding doc requirements? I know we need them for auditors, but not for funding anymore?

Maybe, to be honest I no longer assess but spend my time solely doing IQA work!

tangerine27

I just spoke to my assessor who's told me that the college doesn't get involved in any of the situations to do with pay or hours in the workplace, and the only requirement my boss has is to offer me 16 hours work a week.
I'm so confused. She's given me the number of a lady at college to talk to about this in more detail but what do I do if she says the same thing?

emsywoo123

tangerine27 wrote: »

I just spoke to my assessor who's told me that the college doesn't get involved in any of the situations to do with pay or hours in the workplace, and the only requirement my boss has is to offer me 16 hours work a week.
I'm so confused. She's given me the number of a lady at college to talk to about this in more detail but what do I do if she says the same thing?

I personally would look to escalate this; your contract is for 30 hours a week, so regardless of apprentice or otherwise, she cannot just say it is different rules as hairdressing!

It is such a shame that your assessor is not supporting you more with this. Speak to the contact at college (is it the apprenticeship manager or equivalent?) and see where you can get with them.

This link:

https://www.gov.uk/apprenticeships-guide/pay-and-conditions


Is from the gov website which confirms that you should be working a min of 30 hours per week. Quote it at them!

marcarm

And this is, in a nutshell, why a lot of people don't trust the apprenticeship scheme, because of crap employers and assessors, nothing to do with the actual apprentices themselves.