AWARD CRITERIA

The Apprenticeship Programme of the Year Award is presented to an enterprise that has implemented any kind of Apprenticeship Programme on its own, or to a provider who produced an Apprenticeship Programme that met the needs of an industry sector or of employers.

Open to anyone that has implemented an apprenticeship programme to meet employee or industry needs

WHAT ARE THE JUDGES LOOKING FOR?

The judges will be seeking clear differentiators from other entrants to the award, evidence of innovation, effective needs analysis and verification, apprentice and sponsor support, apprentice engagement, client satisfaction, and a strong proposition in response to the challenge ‘what opportunities did it create for the apprentice?’ You should also highlight how many apprentices made a successful transition into permanent employment as a consequence of the programme.

YOUR SUBMISSION

You are requested to structure your submission in a way that covers the sections below. Each section will be reviewed by the judges during the short-listing phase and the submission will be scored.

  • Overview – a brief description of the programme and the enterprise’s expectations and requirements. Explain why an apprenticeship programme was developed, the recruitment criteria and the numbers of apprentices recruited and the size of the organisation that they were recruited into. (maximum 200 words)
  • Description of the key challenges, and the approaches adopted – consider the following points within your submission: needs analysis, sourcing strategies, solution development, project planning, service delivery, apprentice engagement, sponsor engagement, performance outcomes, innovation, and lessons learned. Quantify the percentage of recruits that stayed the full course and the reasons for any drop outs along the way. The apprentice’s voice should be clearly heard in the application. (maximum 250 words)
  • Outcomes – what were the key performance metrics and results, both in terms of business performance and, also, in terms of meeting stakeholder and apprentice, expectations? (maximum 250 words)
  • Achievement – what do you consider to be your unique and core achievements on this programme and why do you believe that this is the year that it should be Apprenticeship Programme of the Year? What lasting impact has the Programme made on the organisation and the individual apprentice? (maximum 400 words)