Nine, talented, young people from the Reading area have successfully completed their traineeships with QA and Prudential. Never ones to shy away from a party, we were there to celebrate with our learners at their graduation ceremony.
The programme the trainees undertook was the first of its kind for Prudential. Lasting fourteen weeks it saw trainees get a real taste of working life through hands on, on the job experience and classroom based sessions. This subsequently armed our trainees with the knowledge to gain the necessary qualifications to continue their progression into an apprenticeship (which at the time of writing this is five of the nine who completed their traineeship!).
This particular traineeship was notable as a proportion of the learners had to overcome adversities and issues to enable them to get the best from the programme. The traineeships team worked with the learners comprehensively to ensure that any problems they had were identified, resolved and overcome.
"Many young people find themselves trapped in a negative cycle when looking for their first job – they want to progress into employment but don’t have the work experience or the relevant qualifications to be able to prove to would-be employers they can do the job – especially if they don’t have their English and Maths GCSEs” says Jo Giles, Director of Traineeships.“A traineeship is a great way for young people to gain these much needed Level 3 qualifications at the same time as gaining valuable work experience for their CV. It has been great to celebrate with Prudential’s traineeship-graduates, especially as many of them have gone on to secure full-time roles now that they have completed the programme.”
“QA worked with us to deliver a traineeship programme which equipped young people with the entry-level tech and business skills they needed to make a start in the financial sector.” Said Maria Wilcockson, Apprenticeship Scheme Manager at Prudential. “Many of the trainee graduates will be progressing onto a full-time position with Prudential so it has led to real job-outcomes. We will be looking to rerun the scheme again in the coming months”
Here’s to the next cohort we send through for a successful traineeship with Prudential!