Our Journey with Apprenticeships:

Manor Fields Primary

Helen Smith is Headteacher at Manor Fields Primary School in Bishop’s Stortford (part of Herts and Essex Multi Academy Trust).

Over the past decade, Manor Fields Primary has diversified its use of apprentices and apprenticeship training programmes. Initially, the focus was solely on hiring new members of staff as PE apprentices, before this was broadened to include classroom-based and Early Years support.

Recently Helen has started leveraging the government-funded training to upskill her existing staff. Her teaching assistants were some of the first in the country to embark on the new Level 5 Specialist Teaching Assistant apprenticeship, with staff opting to follow different specialisms.

Manor Fields Primary achieves high standards of academic success and is in the top 10% for some subjects nationally. It also has a large number of children with significant special educational needs.

Helen sums up her apprenticeship journey in the videos below.

“Training our staff to support our children with significant SEND is an area where apprenticeships are particularly helping. They’ve added so much to this school and we know this will be an area of growing need.”

Helen Smith, Headteacher
Manor Fields Primary School

Find out more 

Explore our Teaching Assistant progression pathway apprenticeships at Level 3 and Level 5