Management apprentice achieves highest grade despite setbacks

A management apprentice has achieved a distinction in his Level 5 Operations Management Apprenticeship despite significant setbacks to his learning journey. 

Daniel Jennings, a CAD specialist who manages a small team at Brown MacFarlane joined Performance Through People in 2023 when his previous training provider ceased trading. 

This not only brought about a change of tutor, but also a different awarding body and, compared with his previous provider, a completely new way of learning.

Dan said: “With my old training provider, all of the learning was on-line, I had to read tutorials and then answer questions about what I had read. 

“I had some meetings with my tutor, but these were also pretty much exclusively on-line.  

“When I moved to PTP, it was much more of a hands-on experience.

“Dave (Price), my tutor, came and saw me on-site and provided me with real individualised support. 

“It was tough at the beginning because much of the work that I had completed wasn’t really relevant to what I needed to produce for my End Point Assessment, however Dave helped me to gather practical evidence from my real work experiences that I could use to fill the gaps in my portfolio.”

Dave Price said: “Dan could have given up when hit with the challenges he’s outlined, however he had such a positive attitude to the whole process it was a pleasure to work with him.

“When students have that genuine drive to succeed, I’ll always put in the extra hours to make sure that they have the support they need to achieve their goals. 

“However, it wasn’t just Dan and me working on this, the whole team at Brown Mac were really supportive.

“If Dan needed the opportunity to work on a project or get access to something outside of his normal responsibilities then I knew that I could speak to his manager, Ant’ Ellis, or HR Manager Linda Miller, and they would do everything in their power to help us out.”

Linda said; “We always saw the promise in Dan, which is why we invested in him. 

“It’s great to see that he has done so well and I know the support that he’s received from Dave has been a big part of this. 

“I can’t wait for the Apprenticeship Graduation Ceremony when we can see him formally receive recognition for all of his hard work. 

“We are now looking at another potential candidate to work with PTP as part of their management development.”

Pictured from left to right: HR manager Linda Miller, Dan Jennings and his line manager, Ant' Ellis.