Q&A with Claire Farmer, Graduate Apprenticeship mentor at SDS

Wednesday 03 March 2021

Claire Farmer is currently mentoring Caitlin Mooney who is undertaking a Graduate Apprenticeship within her team at Skills Development Scotland (SDS). She recently took some time to answer some questions about her experience as a mentor.

Can you tell us a bit about your role and SDS?

I am the Head of Innovation Management in the Service Design and Innovation team in SDS .Our team is an ideas lab for the design and development of new or improved services in SDS. One of our recent successes is the Graduate Apprenticeship. We also designed Foundation Apprenticeships and many other products and services that SDS offers to the public.

How did you become involved with Graduate Apprenticeships?

Obviously, we were involved in the development of Graduate Apprenticeships and the implementation with a number of universities. Damien Yeates, our Chief Executive, is keen that we “walk the talk” in SDS and so we have introduced a Young Talent Programme which actively recruits and supports Foundation, Modern, Technical and Graduate Apprentices across the business every year as well as an intake of graduate interns. This is our first Graduate Apprenticeship cohort, we have seven Graduate Apprentices in Business Management and IT across the business.

How have you found it so far?

It has been really interesting to see what it’s like for our customers who are using Graduate Apprenticeships, having only seen it from the design and implementation side. I also have a technical apprentice and a Graduate Apprentice in my team and, compared to others who are doing more formal learning, their experience has been exponentially better. They are able to grasp the concepts they are being taught easily as they can see how they apply in the workplace every day. They are also able to put that learning into practice right away and are showing continuous and rapid improvement in their skillset and confidence levels.

Do you think the current situation with Covid-19 has affected the Graduate Apprentice experience and if so, how?

Ironically, Caitlin chose a different provider from the rest of the Graduate Apprenticeship cohort because she needed an online model which suited her circumstances and learning style better than a face to face one. However, Covid has meant that all of our apprentices are effectively getting the same experience. It’s unfortunate that they miss out on face to face contact with their fellow students but apart from that the online learning process works really well and RGU have made sure that virtual face to face meetings takes place as often as possible.

Do you think Graduate Apprenticeships are valuable to the employer? If so, why?

Absolutely. We are able to plan and shape Caitlin’s work to meet her learning outcomes which also delivers what we need and has a use beyond her portfolio. For example, she recently carried out an evaluation of psychometric tools which will be used in projects we are doing on learning and development in the workplace. Graduate Apprenticeships make a valuable contribution to the workplace from day one and are able to apply their learning straight away. Compared to a graduate who is having to reflect on past learning which could be as old as four years ago, this seems to be an obvious benefit. It is one of the reasons many European countries have higher productivity than Scotland. They have a bigger proportion of work based learning which has immediate practical benefits and therefore makes them more productive.