Benefits for your community through employing an apprentice
Community Apprenticeship Partner | Wycombe Wanderers Foundation
Wycombe Wanders Foundation has been working with Educational and Sporting Futures for one season.
As the official charity of Wycombe Wanderers Football Club, the charity is a shining example of an organisation that has invested in apprenticeship opportunities to deliver impact within their setting and encourages young people to develop lifelong activity habits, that they can then promote to people of all ages within their local community.
Mark Heath, Community Lead
Using our experience of Community delivery we can work with the employer to find a model that will complement their current delivery. The initial conversations were that WWF wanted three apprentices, but we worked closely with them to enable them to have four apprentices, accessing the Levy Transfer, allowing them to expand their delivery and have a bigger impact in the community.
As a positive influence embedded in the heart of the local community, they promote and encourage young people in the community to reach their potential and achieve personal fulfilment aligning with their four primary strategic aims.
With the strong relationship that has been forged between Educational and Sporting Futures and WWF we have been able to work in partnership to expand the delivery capability of WWF across the wider community by offering apprenticeships across all their departments.
We asked Andy Homent, Wycombe Wanderers Club Activity Programme Manager / Interim Head of Communication, to share his experience of recruiting apprentices.
What is the impact of Educational and Sporting Futures apprentices working with pupils?
They have an excellent enthusiasm and thirst to build their knowledge, confidence, and understanding of their role here at Wycombe Wanderers Foundation, and that rubs off on the participants/pupils in their delivery.
Wycombe Wanderers Foundation has benefitted in multiple ways from the introduction of numerous cohorts of apprentices, and none more so in our ability to work with and engage with more participants in our community, but also in our ability to invest in the apprentices to grow our full time and part-time workforce.
The apprentices we have recruited have gone on to form a key part of our workforce across our Sports Participation, Education & Employability, and Health & Inclusion departments. From providing high-quality delivery to our participants in schools, holiday camps, outreach programmes, and much more, the apprentices have enabled us to go even further in satisfying our charitable aims across countless areas of our community.
“The support we have received from Sporting Futures has been second to none, from meeting them for the first time and discussing our new relationship, to the recruitment, vetting, and education services they provide. This is sure to be a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship moving forward.”
Mark Heath, Community Lead commented
Using our experience of Community delivery we can work with the employer to find a model that will complement their current delivery. The initial conversations were that WWF wanted three apprentices, but we worked closely with them to enable them to have four apprentices, accessing the Levy Transfer, allowing them to expand their delivery and have a bigger impact in the community.
Having a strong knowledge/ background in the community setting has allowed us to develop a bespoke programme for CCO’s.
A combination of face-to-face and virtual delivery has allowed the WWF apprentices to work with other apprentices in other CCO’s across the country.
With the support of WWF coaches and ESF tutors the WWF apprentices have been fortunate enough to have a wide variety of experiences that they have been able to translate into their coaching delivery.
As the WWF apprentices become a vital part of the delivery team it demonstrates the success of the programme.