Patrick Weaver – Carving out a construction career with EPA success

Hull College Group celebrate their first apprentice, Patrick Weaver, as he achieves a distinction with his Carpentry and Joinery end-point assessment.

We recently spoke to Patrick’s Skills Coach and Assessor, Trevor McGarry, and Maria Gregory, Assistant Director of Curriculum for Apprenticeships on their EPA experiences and how Hull College have built a strong foundation for future success.

Trevor has been a part of Hull College for many years and talked through the learning and assessment approach.

“Moving to the new standards meant that we had to completely review our curriculum of learning to ensure it supported our apprentices in their journey to end-point assessment. This was by no means a simple task and took a lot of work to ensure that we were happy with the structure.” Trevor said.

Whilst many apprenticeship standards have been running for a few years now, some of the areas in Construction are relatively new, including Carpentry and Joinery.

Although the process is new, supporting apprentices with their skills and knowledge is not, and Trevor guides his apprentices, providing regular feedback through the on-programme period.

“I was a little nervous at the start as the new apprenticeship standards have really raised the bar for carpentry and joinery training, but the End Point Assessor put me at ease straight away and explained the tasks well. The test was challenging so I was ecstatic when heard I had achieved a distinction. This will now help me progress within my career.”

Maria Gregory was delighted to hear the news of Patrick gaining a distinction and is keen to build on the success.

“We are very proud here at Hull College of Patrick’s success and are confident that we have structured our programmes well to deliver against these standards.

City & Guilds have supported us well through the process, and the recent webinars have been invaluable. The flexibility on the portfolios have helped this year, and the sample questions on the SmartScreen platform were really useful”.

Maria is passionate about the power of apprenticeships and proud to support the next generation of talent.

“As a young man working for his father’s company, it is great to see him achieve his apprenticeship credentials, and this will set him up for the next stage. We truly believe apprenticeships are the best form of training, the combination of working on and bringing the new knowledge, skills and behaviours into play is the perfect blend”.

To find out more about how we can support centres and apprentices in Construction, visit our EPA page.