Engineering Apprenticeship

The Engineering Apprenticeship comprises two stages of training:

1.         Initial stage

This takes place ‘off the job’ based at IPS and is generally a broad base of practical skills, knowledge and understanding of engineering as a craft and prepares an apprentice for further training.  The apprentice should achieve NVQ 2 and a mandatory minimum of 3 additional technical units in order to complete this stage. This stage lasts for 10 months

2.         Post Initial Stage

The remainder of the apprenticeship takes place ‘on site’ at your premises where the apprentice develops skills, knowledge and understanding of the company and its processes and gather evidence towards gaining their NVQ 3.

What Types of Engineering does IPS INTERNATIONAL offer?

IPS trains for local industry and all the apprentices attending IPS are employed by companies based throughout Kent. Most of the training is in the maintenance field where they are required to fault find and repair a system or part of a process.

Mechanical Maintenance. This involves the repair of all mechanical items that are used in the manufacture of another product i.e. repairing pumps, conveyor systems, gearboxes and compressors.

Electrical Maintenance. Repairing electrical supply, installing motors working on control equipment. You could be working on voltages ranging from 12v to 33000kv!

Control/Instrument Engineer. Making sure the processes work properly working on such things as pneumatic systems and programmable logic controllers.

What QUALIFICATIONS will they achieve?

There are a variety of qualifications that can be achieved by the Apprentice as well as individual course certificates obtained during training.

Any Apprenticeship must have an outcome of an NVQ 3, which is a competence-based assessment of ability to carry out a range of tasks.

In addition, there is a strong reliance within Engineering Training on Further Education which is also carried out at our centre.

Apprentices normally follow either City and Guilds or BTEC National courses depending on school or prior educational achievement.

The outcome qualifications for an Apprentice would be:

· VQ 2 Performing Engineering Operations

· NVQ 3 Engineering Maintenance

· Level 2 or 3 Key Skills

· BTEC National Certificate or Higher National Certificate

Candidate Recruitment

Educational attainment should be to a minimum of 4 GCSEs Grade ‘C’ and to include Maths, Combined Sciences and English.

The apprentice will be invited for an aptitude test which includes the following tests:

· Verbal Understanding

· Numerical Reasoning

· Mechanical Concepts

· Fault Diagnosis

Those that pass the tests are then put forward to yourself for interview

Key Skills

Key Skills are skills that are commonly needed for success in a range of activities in education, training, work and life in general.

Employers have taken a lead in promoting the importance of the key skills for employability.

The three primary key skills units are:

. Communication

. Information Technology

. Application of Number

These are portfolio based and also require an external assessment test

The three wider skills units are:

. Working With Others

. Improving Own Learning and Performance

. Problem Solving

These are portfolio and work based.

Diagnostic tests allow both the apprentice and their trainer to identify areas where they are competent and areas where they need further development.