An indispensable partner to businesses

Blackburn College is one of the biggest Further and Higher Education Providers in the College Sector in England.

The college offers a high quality range of courses designed to meet the needs of employers, whilst supporting learners to advance their job and career prospects. Over the past four consecutive years, nine out of ten students from Blackburn College left to go into employment or further study.

Blackburn College works closely with employers across Pennine Lancashire and beyond, supporting them in developing a world class workforce and being competitive in a global marketplace.

This is central to the mission, as an educational institution driven by vocational and academic excellence, to work hard to become an indispensable partner to business.

Blackburn College has built an excellent reputation for delivering high quality apprenticeships across a variety of sectors. It constantly works to offer new and exciting career paths by introducing new Higher Level Apprenticeships to meet increasing demand from businesses.

The College offers 50 Apprenticeships at Intermediate, Advanced and Higher Levels across a wide range of sectors, proudly working in partnership with organisations such as Northcote, Bowker BMW and Herbert Parkinson to create and deliver the most exciting and rewarding job opportunities and career development.

The college is committed to supporting employers through the period of Apprenticeship Reform and with the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, to help businesses of sizes and from across the sectors, gain the maximum benefit from the new opportunities.

ContactChris PreciousTel: 01254 292500chis.precious@blackburn.ac.uk or business@blackburn.ac.ukwww.blackburn.ac.uk

Apprenticeship reforms create new opportunities for managers

Apprenticeship reforms will create new opportunities for businesses to develop their existing staff. From May this year, new flexibilities will mean that even more of the workforce can benefit from an apprenticeship programme, including those who already have a degree level qualification.Interest is already gathering for businesses keen to use their Apprenticeship Levy or the new funding arrangements, to develop their managers using the new Apprenticeship Standards.

“The new management standards have really generated significant interest already,” said Claire Shore, senior business development manager at Blackburn College.

“Combined with the new flexibilities, these Higher Level Apprenticeships represent a great opportunity for staff to develop their skills and enhance their career opportunities and businesses are now seeing the apprenticeship programme as a valuable part of their development plans.“The new management standards allow practising managers to explore all aspects of their job role, whilst coming together with others to share best practice. For small businesses these programmes can be tailored to suit the needs of individual managers but increasingly, larger organisations are looking to Apprenticeships to meet the needs of their whole company management development programme.”