An interactive and informative webinar about our Sustainability Business Specialist Apprenticeship (with Sustainability MSc) in which you can find out more about this unique programme and how it will be delivered.
https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/postgraduate-apprenticeships/sustainability-apprenticeship
https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/masters-courses-part-time/sustainability
Welcome to Cranfield University that’s enough of that cheesy music thank you for taking some time out of your busy days my name is Toby Thompson I’m the studio director here at the Glorious Granville Turner Studios thank you again for joining us this is going to be an
Interactive session so we are very keen to hear your questions comments observations challenges pretty much at any time in what I reckon will be an hour we promise not to go over uh the hour mark So in the UK 1:00 so at any time if there’s something you want to
Say find that text chat function in Zoom I think you know where it is and just say something uh and you could maybe start by saying where are you in the UK we’re assuming you are in the UK like I say an hour um and we’re very keen to
Carry on the conversation so if you’re watching the recording uh you missed a great session uh so get yourself talking to Grandfield you’ll know by the end of this session who to talk to and on that note I’m going to introduce a few people here we’re going to come back to Rosen
In a second but we’re joined in the studio here by Rosen my esteemed colleague esteemed esteemed afternoon we’re also joined by some real students uh online um I’m going to first of all go to Christina government we’re going to be talking about the apprenticeship and Christina is our
Apprenticeship lead so we’ll come back to Christina very shortly there’s Robbie Robbie give us a quick wave Robbie is there he is a current student Anushka bottom bottom left to give us a wave two just to prove it it’s live and Lucy in a very fetching hi Vis give us away bottom
Bottom right so there you go so these are real students so if at any point you’ve got questions what’s it really like studying at Cranford what’s it really like studying sustainability then we have some a whole bunch of people that you can ask those questions to and
I’ve got my first question for you um so Rosen tell us a bit more about yourself and introduce yourself if you could um so yes Toby I’m the course director co-c course director of the MSE sustainability I work in Cranfield School of Management um and I’m head of
The sustainable business group there um so I just wanted to say thank you to people for coming today to hear about this course um it’s something I’m really really passionate about um and I can’t wait to answer your questions my first question then I guess you’re interested because we’re
Interested in you you’re interested in us we’re kind of susing each other out here who who is this course for good good first question Toby so this course is obviously for people who are already sustainability professionals at whatever stage that might be in their journey and their career who want to become more
Well-rounded in their sustainability knowledge who want to have a a more structured formal learning that helps them to do what is often a very difficult job in their organizations you know in terms of understanding the technical side of sustainability but also being able to lead for sustainability take other people with
Them on that Journey inside their organization but it’s not just for those people it’s also for people who are in different functional roles who are seeing sustainability as being an increasing part of their their job um so actually I’ll show you a slide here um
Where we have some of the job roles I was going to ask you do you have to have the word sustainability in your job Ro so you don’t have to have sustainability in your job role and you can see here from this slide on the left hand side
There’s some job roles that are based on sustainability or ESG or environment whatever that’s referred to in the organization but increasingly we are seeing people joining and really benefiting from the course in other functions whether that’s procurement it Finance um operations because it’s becoming something they need to
Understand and be able to work confidently with as well in their in their roles and we talking to Luc later on Whose operations directors I understand this Lucy Lucy’s name is on there too or the director on and you know this shows the job titles but the
Students that we have on the cohorts um so far are from a huge range of sectors as well so the course is very much not sector specific so we have people all the way from you know heavy engineering manufacturing all the way through to service companies that you know legal
Companies that don’t don’t make anything so that it’s very sector agnostic and actually that diversity of sectors is a really core part of the learning so someone saying sustainability doesn’t apply to me you would say absolutely not it does absolutely not every organization needs to face into it yeah
Brilliant okay so on the course I mean this is ridiculous in a sense but what do you actually learn is that too simple a question no again I’ve got some slides to illustrate this I’m not going to spend too much time talking about um the modules that you cover um but I’ll talk
A bit more about the general principle so you hopefully if you’ve had a look at the the web page already um you’ll see that this course is primarily delivered online um and the reason for that is to number one make it accessible to more people who might not be able to travel to
Crownfield on a regular basis and number two to to reduce the carbon of footprint associated with delivering the course um the delivery is from the studio um so it’s very high quality online live learning so you’re there with your tutor in real time for that online teaching
And then to complement that we have three um residentials which I’ll talk about a bit more in a few slides and it’s all about applied learning so it’s about theories Frameworks but also then what you do with them back in the organization so that’s the spirit of the apprenticeship but that’s also the
Spirit of how we talk teach at Cranfield anyway it’s Theory into practice um and very much a part of this course is what we all learn from each other so you can see a lovely photo there of um a couple of the cohorts there’s so much to learn
From other people in other sectors with different experience that’s a key part of the learning and it’s also about staying close to current practice so as well as learning from from lecturers and academics um you also learn from specialists in their field within industry can I just interrupt you
There by saying we have someone from Birmingham whoop let’s hear it from Birmingham Bedford um Sunny Yorkshire Sunny Yorkshire really uh spittle fields in London and Albans London South Cumbria North Devon well there you go that just illustrates the point that you know if we were asking you all to travel
To Cranfield every month what the carbon footprint of of that would be but Le Lena is from Namibia someone from Manchester too so thank you for letting us know where you are it makes us feel a warm and fuzzy um so I’m just do you
Want me to talk about mod so so this I’m not as I said I’m not going to talk through all this modules on the course page you can click in every module and see what the learning outcomes of that module what you’ll learn in each of those modules but essentially the
Structure is in the first year you come and have a residential and then there are eight T taught modules um in the second year again you start the year off with a residential chance to reconnect with people um in a human way and then on to um another seven modules and then
The last six months of the course kicks off again with a residential and that’s very much focused then on your work-based project or your applied thesis if you’re not um an apprentice so that’s a a three-month piece of work um research research based work on a on a
Project of your choice with your employer and in terms of what you take away at the end of that um this is a kind of one course with multiple outcomes um so you you come away with a Master’s level degree in sustainability um if you’re on the apprenticeship Bo
You also Come Away with a level seven which means Master’s level apprenticeship and the course is accredited by IMA which is the biggest um industry body for sustainability practitioners so the course is accredited by them so you get that accreditation and then the two points at
The end you do build the most fantastic Network um of of of like-minded people who will be a support and hopefully an inspiration for you outside the course and Beyond the course that’s PR much IMA there Sabina is just asking what is the IMA accreditation level so you automatically get practitioner level on
Completing the course and then if you’ve got enough experience going into the course in terms of years of experience in the sustainability role um then then then you get the full membership Saina come back if you want any further information on that brilliant thank you um so how does it actually work what
What what are the what are the days looking like um so each module runs over a period of seven weeks um and hopefully this will show what the rhythm of that seven weeks looks like so crucially within the seven weeks um there are two and a half days of live
Teaching but in between those those live teaching days um you do self-paced learning so either reading and preparing for a live session or doing work that consolidates your learning from a live session so every other week you have live in between self-paced learning and also in those weeks in between you’ll be
Starting to build the assessment that you have to do for each module um so that’s how it works so very live Interactive Learning with periods in between which give you the time to absorb what you’ve learned think about how that would apply to work and actually start applying it to work for
For your assessment we’re going to follow on on that question too with the students that we’re going to be talking to very shortly in terms of support people are thinking I’ve just got to talk a bit about the residentials yeah because they they’re really exciting because they are obviously an
Opportunity to to meet face to face so just to give you a flavor the first residential is obviously a lot about induction getting to know each other we also play this which is the sustainable Futures game um which is an opportunity to really immerse yourself in the the sustainability context and do that
Collaboratively with your with your your cohort um the second residential is about Innovation and exploring topics through an unconference that you might want to study further in your endpoint assessment and these pictures are all of the Cranfield University um Innovation tour because our campus itself is a site
For Innovation and research around um sustainable technology so we’ve got a hydrogen production facility um on here we’ve got um air source heat pumps and we’ve also got a very glamorous photo of the students visiting our pilot Hall I want to wear me one of those that looks
Which is a the pilot Hall is a polite name for um our on campus sewage works and then the third residential just to complete the picture is about getting you ready for your empo assessment and really equipping you with the research skills you’ll need to do that piece of
Research okay I’m going to uh cut in there with a question that Sarah’s got can you do courses in in stages you do year one postgraduate certificate year two postgraduate diploma year three Masters um on the apprenticeship route you can’t so on the apprenticeship route you have to keep going if you’re going
On the non- apprenticeship route you can decide to exit after a year and and go away with those um intermediary level qualifications or you could decide to do a year take a break break so there’s much more flexibility on the on the non- apprenticeship route on the apprenticeship route not so much and
That’s not us saying that that’s the government Sarah keep coming back to us if you want more information on that please you can do it here obviously you can carry on the conversation but Sarah thanks thanks for that um Isabelle’s asking can you attend residentials without a
Mentor yes you can so we do invite I think where that question probably comes from is that we do invite employers to part of the the residential so they can experience for themselves what crownfield what the course is like what what you’re learning but there’s no
Requirement to do that you don’t have to bring your Mentor so Isabelle likewise you can uh follow on with more if you want tell us more I just started to ask you about support there what sort of support can the people expect from crownfield so um essentially we see this
Course very much as a three-way relationship so a relationship between you as the learner um your employer your sponsor from your for employer so that doesn’t necessarily have to be your line manager it could be someone some who’s really interested in your learning so it could be your head of sustainability it
Could be your managing director and then also every student is assigned an apprenticeship tutor if they’re on the apprenticeship so this is a person that stays with you through the whole um length of the two and a half years make sure that you’re filling all the requirements of the apprenticeship as
Well as progressing academically and if you’re not on the apprenticeship RP you’re assigned a course tutor who performs the same um job so you can expect to meet with your apprenticeship or course tutor at least every um 12 weeks and then you’ll have a meeting that involves your employer sponsor as
Well typically every 12 to 16 weeks so they can stay close to how you’re developing what you’re learning how you’re applying that in the workplace it kind of come up with um Sarah’s question there earlier on but and maybe Christina is going to be talking about this one
But who is eligible to apply so um eligibility um is kind of double layered for for an apprenticeship so from an academic perspective what we typically um look for um for an applic applicant is a 21 or above in an undergrad degree however um because this course is and
Crownfield are very much about um practice we really recognize that some people will have developed the skills that they need for Master’s level study without having done an undergrad degree so if you’ve been working for eight years and you’ve done extensive bits of work that involve research and writing
Then you could still very well be eligible for the course all that would happen is that you’d have to be interviewed by an academic to whether you had those skills so that’s that’s the academic eligibility um from an apprenti perspective I’ll leave that to Christina to to um uh cover in a bit
More detail because it is based bound whether you live in the UK and and other factors um like that if you’re coming on a non apprentiship route it really is that um eligibility that I’ve already talked about from a from an academic perspective brilliant perfect seg there Christin Christina I think you’re up
Next um but if you not had a chance so far to ask a question in the zoom text chat please ask away any question no such thing as a stupid question so please put that question in the zoom text chat and as you’ve seen already I’ll just interrupt whoever’s talking so
Christina oh there is a question let’s quickly do a question can I quick quickly do a question I’ve got a chance to talk about the deadlines as well can I this is uh Lena can I nominate an apprenticeship from my country or employer or is this something that the
Course director will do on my behalf so say that again can I nominate an apprenticeship from my country or employer or is this something that the course director will do on my behalf so if you’re the apprenticeship scheme is only available for people who are um in
Live in England live and work in England so it’s very much a a scheme for for English students you can absolutely apply for the course and participate as a nonap entice from other countries yeah anywhere anywhere in the world if you are looking at the apprenticeship route
It is a two phase application so your employer would say that they’re prepared for you to come on the course and and then you apply as an individual brilliant okay so hopefully that answers that question and and Le just come back again if that’s not clear uh another
Quick one from Isabelle uh maybe more suitable for the next part but on the application under qualifications do we only need to include most recent qualifications um your highest level qualifications are the ones that will definitely be more important um if you’re coming in on appren ship route
Those worth knowing that you need ma maths and English GCSE o Lev um passes and you have to provide evidence of that so hunting around in your attic is often often needed but I know Christina has got a solution for that and there’s a bunch more questions here but I’m going
To Christina if I can come to you next we I think you’re going to be able to answer some of these things so CHR Christina let’s just prove to me that you are live and that you do have some slides to share with us just give us a
Wave if you can there you are hi hi and Christina you recognize some of those questions I’m sure but talk us through your slide deck if you can first of all and I think that might even generate more questions so over to You Christina maybe introduce yourself first of course
Uh so I’m Christina Goodman I work in the apprenti ships office here at Cranfield so I support all of our employers and our applicants from that initial inquiry stage all the way until they join us on their first day of learning here at Cranfield brilliant let’s bring up your slides and let’s
Let’s see how this works so these are these are the really key dates that um Rosen was just sharing before um so they are application deadlines so do note those down um we have a colleague who will share them in the chat um as
Well and I did me I did see someone in the chat earlier saying will the slides be shared afterwards uh I believe the answer is yes to that so Christina go ahead thanks Toby so what is an apprenticeship um it’s a program which provides you with a valuable opportunity
To upscale um either your own knowledge skills or behaviors or those of your employees um it’s a chance for apprentices to advance their own career but also so bring their learning from the classroom into the workplace and improve those existing practices straight away nobody has to wait for you
To finish a complete program you’ll be really encouraged uh straight away to take what you’ve learned um and embed it into the workplace and into your team uh straight away um it’s also as Rosen said it’s a fantastic opportunity to network and learn from your peers as well so here at
Cranfield it’s really important to us that not only do you learn from our academic staff but you learn from those on your cohort as well and share your experiences and your understanding of different things and next slide please and so what exactly is an apprenti ship and what and how how would
You benefit so an apprenti ship is a paid job so you wouldn’t stop your work and continue learning you do both at the same time so you’re earning your salary your employer is supporting you um by paying your salary and for your apprentiship training as well apprentices are actually given ring
Fence time to spend on their apprenticeship and that averages out at an absolute minimum of 6 hours per week um and that’s outlined in the apprenti funding rules so you must be given that time to study most of that time is taken spent with Cranfield either face to face
In person outlined in those uh residential activities um or it would be live online teaching um any remaining time would be spend learning at your own pace so that self-directed learning that Ren was talking about earlier youd have all the support from your employer so they’re allowing you that time to to
Learn um paying for your apprenticeship and also providing a mentor um throughout the duration of your apprentiship to help you in the workplace identify these opportunities to expand and Implement your knowledge um you’d also have a recognized qualification at the end so not only are you completing as Rosen
Said you get the apprenticeship you get your academic qualification um and you also um get a further certificate from um an accredited uh body as well it’s absolutely an opportunity to upskill yourself um whilst you’re working and I I just can’t emphasize how um good an opportunity an apprenticeship
Is um definitely if I had my time again I would go back and do an apprenticeship rather than the traditional degree for sure uh next slide please so how to apply and I think this is one where lots of questions will be coming from so as Rosen said it is a
Two-phase application process so first of all we need to hear from your employer um they need to complete what’s called an expression of interest and then we will share with them the application link so just be aware that our application links for apprenti ships are not on our website those are for a
Traditional student group so applications are submitted you create a profile and you tell us all about yourself so you tell us about your highest uh academic qualifications um that you’ve already obtained um about your your work history um and also about yourself and why you would want to undertake um this program of
Study um you’ll then hear from me uh with what’s called an initial assessment and that is to check your eligibility for apprenticeship funding so apprentices must have lived uh and worked in the UK for uh three years in the UK for three years prior to the star of their apprenticeship um you obviously
Have can traveled abroad but you need to have uh resided in the UK um for those three years and they need to have an eligible uh employer so your employer must be on a PA ye scheme or paying you via P um and you must be working a minimum of 50% of
Your time in England so you can live just across a border um but you must be spending a minimum of 50% of your time in England and there are other requirements such as you can’t already have a qualification in the same area at the same level so if you already have a
Master’s in sustainability we wouldn’t be able to obtain that apprentiship funding for you uh however if you’ve got an MBA or you’ve got uh a PhD in uh environmental science for example you would still be eligible to come and complete this level seven apprenticeship in sustainability um as Rosen mentioned
Earlier you are required to have math and English at level two so that is equivalent to a path at gcsc or O Level depending on when you undertook those qualifications um if you don’t have them it is not a problem we can help support you in obtaining the correct evidence
But we do ask um as part of the application process that you undertake a math and English assessment it is an assessment and not a test so whatever the outcome you would still be able to start it’s just we need to understand your current working level and how we
Can support you going forward on your apprentiship your employer also needs to confirm their support and why they believe this is the most suitable training um for you to undertake at this time and how it would relate to your current job role um so we do that as um
An online form form so they can um complete that and return it to us as part of your application next slide please so what do we expect from you um and the these areas are really important so um attendance for apprentices is is mandatory throughout the program um so
You must absolutely be able to attend that first day of learning and these are requirements by the education skills funding agency and there isn’t flexibility on that first day we do accept that things happen though and events occur during the ation of your apprenticeship so if you were needing to
Take um time out when um a lecture or live teaching is taking place we will work with you and the course team um to make sure that you are able to catch up on that learning um throughout the uh duration of an apprenticeship we have what’s called tripartite reviews so these
Happen around every 3 months and they’re to support you as Rosina said it’s that three-way um relationship so your friendship tutor your employer and yourself will work together at those tripartite reviews to monitor your progress look at what you’ve managed to achieve and what you plan to achieve
Going forward over the next three months um as I said before um apprentices are required to OB uh attend teaching and therefore it is called off the job training um and your employer must allow you to complete this so it averages out um as a minimum the
Government says six hours per week but at crownfield we expect seven uh it is Master’s level we do expect that a little bit more from you um you have to submit all your assessments on time and I cannot stress how important this is not to leave it to
The last minute um the mission is online and it is normally at midnight but we’re not here in the office until that time so if you experience any problems it’s always best to do it before 5:00 when we’re here to help you um but as students you know we all like to leave
Things to the last minute I can hear aena smiling there yeah it’s still common isn’t it even with our apprentices it’s still uh you know 5 5 to midnight um work hard it really does pay off um so we know that you’re working full-time it’s a big ask to also undertake the
Apprenticeship as well at the same time but all this hard work will accumulate in those three three Awards or three certificates at the end of your program and this fantastic Network um that you have then outside of the program um finding ways to apply and practice what you’ve learned is really
Important and you’re a friendship tutor and your line manager Mentor or the the sponsor as R called them I think that’s the best name H in the workplace will really support you in being able to do this and this helps you build that portfolio of evidence required by your
Apprenticeship and as always we are always here to help everyone so whether that’s The Apprentice themselves the employer line manager the apprentiship team at Cranfield are always here to help all of you because we want you to have the best and most positive experience with us and most importantly
We want that Apprentice to be successful great oh gosh sorry that was I was I was I was enwrapped by the questions that are on the screen here um and I think for your benefit and and it’s just the case there are two Rosas here we have Rosena belli who’s answering some of
These questions and some of you have seen Rosen berelli so Rosen thank you very much indeed keep asking those questions got another Rosena here you get none and then you get two at once I just going to let you know some of the questions uh Susan was asking is there
Disabled access for the residentials and rosen’s already applied yes there is so we’re keen to have uh more on that conversation um Sabina and I think is it Colin been talking about eligibility um Sabina is saying six years of experience in the role is of course still suitable
Um I I just recommend people get a hold of me and we’ll have a one-on-one conversation if you’ve got any worries about eligibility just um get in touch with me directly take up that offer serious and Colin was saying yeah likewise eight years of experience in
The field and looking at the course to formalize knowledge at an MC level so Colin right on right on um Chloe’s asking why doesn’t the apprenticeship Levy cover the full cost of the 18,000 so um the course basically costs 18,000 for us to run at the high quality
That we expect of ourselves um and unfortunately the the ban the funding ban for this apprenticeship was set much lower than for a lot of level seven apprenticeships we we don’t know why so effectively it’s the difference between um the viable uh cost the course and the
Levy funding band okay simple that chlo thanks for the question uh James is asking what days are we talking about we’re talking Fridays Friday Fridays Fridays will mean something new to you James hopefully when we see you uh and I think rosen’s also responded in terms of residential weeks are usually the first
Week in March for March intake four days yeah uh and the third week in September second cohort so that and there’s a bunch more questions coming in I’m going to come to some of these questions in a second but I want to go to the students because this might prompt even more
Questions um and this is I keep saying this is my most favorite part of my job is talking to students who are on the course and the students that you see and I never know what they’re going to say you never this is unscripted um so we’re
GNA I think first of all go to Robert so Robert you’re on the left hand side there so Robert can I come to you first uh you are a sustainability Apprentice as I understand this in the beel corporation have I got that right yes that’s right yeah brilliant and uh
Apprenticeship route and you’ve been on the course for a year now you’re in cohort 2 um how does that whole Beckel apprenticeship thing work for you uh yeah it was interesting I suppose so I’ve started working for a for a think tank I did my m m engine
Mechanical engineering and I wanted to study and work at the same time so this this was a route through which to do that I think it was quite lucky that I found this course through backto that it was at my level and then was just kind of seeking additional funding stop up
The levy that was the process of it of it happening I think so tell us more about your experience then Robert on the course what’s it like how does it work being virtual is it Death by PowerPoint tell us more about the experience yeah I mean I think it’s definitely convenient being virtual
Rather than having to make it to Cranfield it would be a track from London to get every Friday but uh yeah I think the PO day full of lectures is is a bit of a challenge I think by the end of the day a bit worn out but there are
Breaks given and kind recommended to go and have a cup of tea and stand away from the desk for for a period of time uh the only tricky thing is using the work laptop I’d say using a personal laptop it’s much easier signing into the teams and the uh and the Outlook and
Things like that that’s an important point because that usually comes up at some point during the day um Anushka can I come to you next if I could and Robbie I’m going to come back to you as well but Anushka Anushka is joining us from cohort one uh I’ve known Anushka now for
18 months uh from an apprentice apprenticeship route and you’re I got this right and a sustainability manager ABF UK grocery group have I got that right yeah that’s right tell us more about your role so we have eight different businesses within our division and they produce lots of household goods that you
Guys would recognize so things like kings small breads PX blue dragon we make all the noodles you get yourself Chinese Takeaway we’re making them rice retailers you name it um so yeah there’s there’s lots of business is they’ve all got slightly different sustainability targets and my role is to really help
Them kind of transition on their Journeys to reach those targets and also engage with our PLC at ABF to make sure that we’re meeting their expectations of us but the way ABF works is it’s quite a devolved business so we’re all doing our own different things so we’re we’re
Working on a whole range of different aspects from social sustainability to environmental sustainability so my role covers quite a various and I’ve got to say I sat with Anushka for one of the residential the dinners in one of the residentials and learned tremendous about about rice I didn’t know half of
The things so anishka knows about rice anishka tell us why why did you choose Cranfield in particular so I’d actually studied sustainability as my undergraduate degree at the University of leads but I wanted to do something else as I saw sustainability was really kind of ramping up in terms of what it was
Looking like for industry and wanted to make sure I was not repeating what I had done at an undergraduate level and I wanted something that was practical and engaging that I could bring back to my job that I’m doing so this was really the perfect answer to meet that
Expectation brilliant and can stick around because there’s a ton more questions but I’m going to go if I can to Lucy um Lucy is slightly different there Lucy is joining us loving that hi is there Lucy you’re joining us from ID verie uh and you’re in cohort 3 and
You’ve gone for the non- apprenticeship route tell us what motivated you to return to study yeah I I guess I got to a point in my career where I wanted to progress um so I sort of increasing my exposure to the senior leadership team and I felt
Like I wasn’t being taken seriously and almost being given the brush off and um when I went away and really gave it some thought and was really honest with myself I felt that maybe I had a genuine skills Gap in that sort of technical ability but also maybe how I was communicating
Both orally and in writing and I guess the only solution to that that I could see was to go back to adult education which absolutely filled me with horror uh I when I left school yeah I went and did a vocational apprenticeship um and the thought of University was
Just too terrifying you know particularly that social element of it I thought God this is never going to be for me but I guess I’d got to the point of that stress I was feeling of the perception of underperforming was greater in the end than my anxiety of you know studying
Academically that you know basically that took me straight into an MBA and the MBA took me directly into this MSC and yeah here I am so Lucy people on the call may be in a similar position to you and not having been back in education for quite a while what tips would you
Give what advice would you give for people thinking how scary it is yeah I mean it is is scary um I guess the difference with crownfield is it feels like a very different organization to be studying with and very open very supportive and I don’t know if that’s
Rosen and her team and their personality or whether it’s the experience that crownfield has because post-graduate educ education is what they do or whether it’s that expert knowledge uh in each discipline but when you put that all together it’s actually a very comfortable place for and I say that
From someone that actually has felt a lot of anxiety about about studying uh academically so all the pieces are there and you absolutely just have to commit to it and surrender to it and get it done I tell you Lucy we got some massive Smiles in the in the studio when you
Said that u in terms of being an an apprenticeship or sorry non- apprenticeship student is there any different does it feel different is there an advantage disadvantage um for me it’s better um the VA was by the apprenticeship Levy um I was lucky enough that my employer
Would sponsor me for this one um and it means actually means less work which is great so you don’t have to do all the key skills and behavior stuff that the government require you to do and evidence so I found it just enables me to focus solely on the assignments um
And from a social perspective you don’t know in your cohort it’s not like oh non apprentices here oh apprentices there it it doesn’t even come into it so it’s fine Lucy that’s brilliant you do you want to add to that because there are I mean Sarah had earlier on the kind of
Question around Apprentice non Apprentice what advice might you give Rosen well I think I think Lucy sort of summed up really well and that that it takes away a layer of evidence that you have to produce um if you are an apprentice um and I guess it comes down
To um the funding really doesn’t it um Lucy was lucky enough her company were happy to sponsor it directly ly so Lucy’s company is still paying but not through the apprenticeship Levy um so in the end sometimes it does come down to that you know that pure hard decision
About how you can access the funding but we try and keep the student experience and I’m glad Lucy said that the student experience is is no different other than this additional layer of reporting you have to do as an apprentice and and the endpoint assessment is very very similar
As well it’s just you know slightly different in terms of how how it’s assessed so you won’t feel any different from other students brilliant keep those questions coming Robbie can I come to you next if I could please and we’ve kind of touched upon this but this 20% Robbie the apprenticeship standard
Recommends study time for this course is around about 20% roughly a day a week strangely or Friday is this a good estimate of the time or is this hopelessly undercooked I think potentially on average given the lectures one week on one week off and the assessment period
Of reports that might be but I definitely find myself nearing the deadline for an assessment spending a bit of time over the weekends I find easier than finding other times during the week I blocked off all of my Fridays on teams for the next three years I
Think so I have that 20 cent logged in but I do find myself using the library on the weekends around the times of deadline and can I be really sneaky and a bit curious Robbie um tell us about your Fridays because uh Charlotte you’re
Asking about you know when is it 9 9 to5 or 9 to 5:30 I think it’s fair to say Robbie how do you find that you get your coffee ready just before 9:00 and youve got a something planned for the evening after 5:30 tell us about your
Fridays uh well it it depends so sometimes a Friday well coffee in the morning and then kind of pizza toast for lunch and that kind of thing to focus on the laptops uh but then usually sort of preparing materials for for the library of of the weekend I prefer to do that
Than work in the evenings personally but I suppose that would be personal preference and Robbie in terms of back tail how do you ensure that you get the support from your organization uh yeah that’s true I think I’ve been quite lucky in that my supervisor and manager have been quite supportive and
Both engaged with a tripartite reviews and we meet also routinely between them to talk about sort of alignment with the course and and other aspects as as as they come up through the course uh but communication with them I think is quite important as as much as possible and are
There any tips for employers maybe the employers are on this call today any tips that you’d recommend um so ensuring you’re engaging with the Tri partip reviews I think is really important um planning planning for them so something that I found really useful is planning the work that
I do at beol with the course material I think it gets the most out of the course at the time so it could be quite different but when it’s aligned or if it can be used as the course comes up that’s that’s quite important I think for an employer to be thinking about
Robbie thank you stick around ton ton of questions coming in uh Anushka if I can go to you next please and we we laughed just before we came on air but we laughed about this next question um how Anushka would you describe your cohort I’m trying to keep a straight
Phase um super vibrant engaging everyone’s there to really learn and have like a really good time with each other you know it is a long day but everyone is super interactive and we were saying before someone may suggest something or bring up a comment and we can go slightly off course but
That’s the value of everybody kind of putting everything in and you know sometimes you can discuss quite sensitive topics within sustainability but everyone feels really open and willing to share their ideas so it’s a really great cohort to be a part of and I’m sure that others are similar as well
But I know us we do like to talk so we you do like to talk but that could be Anushka intimidating for some people let’s say you’re an introvert and what you just described there is quite quite a stretch what advice would you give people worried about that I think that
Another really good thing about the course is that you’re in different groups so you’re in a sector group and then you’re in an action learning set group where you’ve got different people from different sectors so that gives you a chance to interact in a smaller group and there’s lots of breakout sessions
During the lecture days um being at the residential is great because you learn to speak to people and equally if you’re feeding like you want a quiet day you can just sit there and listen or write something on the zoom chat you don’t have to always turn your mic off but it
Definitely adds value to your day I think if you engage throughout and it’s worth saying I’ll say this it’s worth having your camera on too because it does improve engagement sabina’s asking is it then each Friday spent in lectures every week every alternate Friday Friday every other Friday Sabina so not every
Friday every other Friday anishka one last question or not a couple more questions but one next one in terms of impact of your learning on you and your organization how would you describe that I think um really great there’s there’s assignments that I’ve written actually from Rosa’s module about
Looking at how can we make our noodles more sustainable using leftover spent grain from a brewery process and we have um an agricultural business as part of our entity and as a result of me writing that assignment we’ve now started a project to work out how could we kind of
Create these Noles which will help us to reduce our waste and their waste as well so I think it’s helped me think of things that I’m doing in my day of job in a slightly different way than I would have done if I didn’t have the course
Content and I think my pairs on the group as well um having their perspective from the same sector and different sectors has really just added a different spin to how how I how I do my job and how I think about sustainability so I definitely the course is invaluable there’s there’s so
Much to learn from the lectures and outside the lectures to brilliant I’m going to come to Lucy next but for you you hearing that that’s quite something isn’t it you’re hearing that pardon the P Anushka but that’s kind of hand to mouth but yeah um Lucy if I can come to
You next because I want to follow on from what Anushka was saying there so Lucy how do you do your practical assignments if you’re not a pure sustainability role you’re operations director how’d you go about it if you don’t work in a big company yes so I do work for a big
Company but yet just purely operational role and I’ve always worked in operations and at the moment for us sustainability doesn’t really touch operations although I’m sure it will change um but for my assignments I write them from a really strong commercial perspective so commercial organization owned by private Equity if I don’t have
What I’m writing in reality it doesn’t really make much sense so an example is um for the carbon dioxide assignment so we had to do an assignment on calculating carbon dioxide with a view of reducing it I started with um talking about the fuel price and how we could
Save fuel and then I paired that with the carbon dioxide save so I’m basically saying if we use root optimizing software to geographically um arrange our operational rounds we can save a million pounds on fuel and 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and that’s a really strong argument that I
Can put in front of an MD and what I’ll say is three out two out of the first three assignments I wrote one I’ve created uh customer value proposition that we’re working on internally now and the second one was that fuel saving that will drop straight to the bottom line um
And completely is something we can do so it sounds like Lucy that you it’s had an immediate impact not only on what you do how you do it and your standing in the organization by the sound of it yeah absolutely okay next one um Lucy how has
The course helped you then in your role in career you kind of talked about that but can you give examples yeah so um I’m responsible for a lot of high-profile Horticultural contracts which includes the roal parks St james’ Park Houses of Parliament so the king’s coronation we had a lot of operational
Responsibility around delivering that event um and we got um a call from Department of culture media and sports saying the king wants to make it a sustainable event here’s your criteria you need to achieve something we’re not going to tell you what but something around this um and that so the
Coronation was in May and I started the crownfield course must have been the end of Feb and just those three months had given me probably most important the confidence but kind of minimal technical ability to be able to head up not only the operational project team but a
Sustainability project team that I ran alongside and I had had members on each side and I think it was really the first time for me that I was able to actually seamlessly integrate environmental responsibility into our operational roles and you can picture our operational managers you say the
Word sustainability you get eye rolling and actually this was the first time we were all on board single focus and actually the sustainability part became the main focus and that happened quite naturally um absolutely everyone learned something doing that and ultimately it saved us money um I can put a monetary
Value on the saving that that sustainability um agenda brought us for that event and that you know that was 3 to 4,000 lcy that’s amazing story to hear and you got a comment on that you this I just wanted to know was the king happy absolutely there you go we like we
Like the sound of that can I come back to Robbie uh I got another question for you um and Robbie the question is really around what else is involved in apprenticeship over and above just the Master’s level study right yeah yeah so so a difference between kind of doing Masters in the
Apprenticeship so it’s the otj off the job hours logging is is quite different there’s a platform form called Pebble pad that that gets logged through so you go through and log exactly what have you learned each day and I believe that’s a requirement for the levy funding from
The government there’s also a slight difference in the assessment the portfolio of evidence that you need to provide um that evidence is the key skills and behaviors required by the apprenticeship and along with that portfolio of evidence is an interview um where you talk through this skills to ensure that you have learned
Them that that’s the that’s the difference I think those two okay so it’s worth bearing that in mind um there’s a possibly a bit of confusion on line here Sabina is saying so each module is 7 weeks yes there’s a break in between no sorry sabinaa um there’s no
Break in between there are breaks so there’s a there’s a four-week break over summer two weeks for Christmas two weeks for Easter but outside of that as one module ends the next module begins so um it is it is a a sort of regular and often mode of of learning okay but I
Know but that’s diff that is a difficult aspect of the course is that there there isn’t that many gaps um where you where you can take a holiday proper holiday but the the flip side of that is you do know the day you before you start you
Know what the dates of the teaching are for the next two and a half years as as Robbie said so at least you have those dates to plan around so Anushka you found that okay or has that been tricky for you planning no I think it’s it’s it’s
Worked well like Rosina said you get the dates in advance and everyone at work knows I’m not about on Fridays so and I think you have to be strict with that because I think if you start to do small things on a Friday perhaps when you don’t have a lecture
Then you it’s not ingrained in everyone else as M that you’re not around on a Friday so like Robbie said just block out your Fridays so when you don’t have a lecture day you’re either working on the assignment you’re doing group work or you can do some apprenticeship work
Just tell everyone you’ll be back on Monday yeah don’t don’t sneak that little email in because Anushka said I can’t contact her but then she’s responding to our email so yeah don’t do that uh and that whole thing with breaks during the sessions are also very carefully patrolled um Isabelle’s got a
Question here is attendance included as requirement of the award of the credit attendance people have got to attend right so so attendance for an apprenticeship is compulsory um attendance for non- Apprentice is um is compulsory too so you know if you’re in if you’re in a classroom at Cranfield
Doing a master’s level um course you’d have to sign in through a QR code um we don’t get you to sign in through a QR code on our teaching here because we can see on the zoom logs who’s been there and who’s not been so yeah essentially attendance is compulsory and because I
Mean if you’re looking for a course um where you can access all the learning at your own pace because you don’t think you can actually turn up to those live days to be honest this isn’t the course for you because committing to those live teaching days is such an essential part
Of The Learning Experience so I’d be sort of quite um cut and dried about that it is a a live teaching environment even though it’s remote so is well come back if you got any follow on questions from that Anushka another question for you and this is kind of ABF related your
Employer but what advice would you give uh to employers thinking of sending people on a course like this I think um being part of the journey and and understanding what the person who’s doing the course is going through if they’re an apprenticeship sitting down and looking at the knowledge skills and behaviors
And my boss we he makes sure that if I think that there’s any gaps what can he do to help me make sure I can bridge that Gap so it’s actually also an opportunity for the employer to help grow the student um and I think it’s just being active being present in the
Tripartite meetings is really important um and again like I just said giving the time to have your Fridays is is really important good thank you Lucy last one for you um it’s a tricky one what advice would you give for people thinking of applying apply um listen yeah don’t don’t wait for the
Right time if you’re waiting for the right time you’ll be waiting forever you absolutely have to make it the right time now miss the opportunity and and what your learn on this course is not just a technical ability not just a leadership for sustainability but there’ll be a personal development and a confidence
That you’ll take with you not just in work but outside of work as well and that’s something that I’ve really valued and continue to Value Lucy that’s an inspiration to here so thank you for sharing that with us um Karina’s got a question here what commitment is needed again from a mentor
Or from your employer I’m looking at you don’t mind if it’s me or one so so as an apprenticeship employer um the primary formal commitment is that you attend those tripartite meetings that happen every 12 to 16 weeks and but ideally if you want to attend that meeting fully
Informed being able to identify the successes that your your your learners shared where there might be gaps in nka said you know ideally you would be wanting to meet and talk about that more regularly with your apprenticeship candidate but the absolute bare minimum is those tripartite agreements and I
Think what we found is it as I said before it’s not necessarily it doesn’t have to be your line manager because so say your line manager is in a in a role that doesn’t relate as closely to what you’re studying you might be able to find someone else within the
Organization who is more aligned to what you’re studying and who who would be better place to be a sponsor so that’s definitely what obviously your line manager also has to be involved because they have to recognize that you aren’t doing the the work on the Friday but you
Might have someone else who is more a sort of subject Mentor uh question from Isabelle which Rosen Burley has answered partially at least do applications need to be started by the deadline expression of Interest sent or completed by the deadline so the so there’s there’s two things so the
Expression of interest is um the thing that the the employer has to do first and the deadline for that is by the 11th of December and then the second deadline is then for your individual application that follows is the 9th of January but what I really want to say on this is um
This course is very popular we have got a high level of Interest this year and it’s much better for you if you can get this sort in advance um it’d be great if you could have an offer in your hand and know that you’re starting Before Christmas going into the Christmas break
So if this is something that you really want to do I would recommend not leaving it to the last minute as we were talking about before don’t leave those deadlines to the last minute um have the discussions that you need to have internally whether you’re on the
Apprenti ship route or you’re going on the non apprenticeship route but you want your employer to support you on this and um start the process as as soon as possible you can see there deadlines up on the screen there so that’s really important advice Andrew is asking a
Question which I’m I’m surprised no one else has asked are assuming Andrew is assuming apprenticeships and non apprenticeships are are taught together in the same stuff with the same stuff there’s no segregation there congregation same same teaching experience totally no different um and the day of the week we’ve got that
Already from James it was Fridays and that car conversation carries on I’m just going through my um can we share a recording yes we can Andrew don’t worry about that uh Jackie is asking please can we share the contact details to get in touch so uh that’ll be so everyone
Who’s um registered to come on this webinar um whether whether they manag to make it live or not we will send a follow-up email ma which will have um the contact details for the apprenticeship team and the contact details for myself and the course team
So you’ve got those to follow up this is one possibly for you possibly for uh Christina Karina is asking how can I apply for the bsy under the apprenticeship route so applications for so there’s there’s bures available um there’s a change maker burer which is for someone that’s already demonstrated
They’ve had a big impact on sustainability um in their organization and will have continued impact and there’s Al A champing diversity um buery for people who’ve really um been working towards achieving better diversity either in their workplace their Community um if you want to apply for
Either of those bseries which are up to three3 and a half th000 um you need to include in your individual application um a statement that you want to apply for the buery and crucially why because obviously we’ll be assessing those on Merit but it’s worth knowing with the
Bseries we don’t make any decisions about bseries until we’ve seen all the applications because because we want to obviously pick the most outstanding one so you you won’t know until near the time whether you’ve been successful with that vers application and Christina I’m just assuming uh contacting your team
This is um Karina again apprenticeships at Cranfield ac.uk is that right Christina that’s right Toby yes brilliant so apprenticeships Cranfield ac.uk uh is how you contact UM sabina’s got another question around how long are the assignments straight into there the assignments you mean do you mean word count Rosena thank you for the
Qualification um what are we looking at in terms of the assignment so they’re not all written so there’s a variety of types of assignment I didn’t talk about assessment so this is is great so um the forms of written assessment vary um but they between one and a half thousand and
3,000 words but it might be um for my module as as the guys suggested it’s a it’s an innovation proposal written in the language that you’d be making a proposal to your board or your exact committee um another written assessment is a is a risk a risk assessment
Document others um are more um databased so your life cycle assessment for example you would upload the spreadsheet that you did the calculation and and a and a reflection on that um that one assessment is a podcast um so you you create um a piece of video or or audio
Content so um they all they vary some of them are group based tasks based on a presentation um but yes nothing long in terms of written nothing longer than two and a half 3 words Isabelle’s breathing aign relief there no exam no exam no exam we Isabelle is asking other group
Assignments there definitely are and just from from a point of view of seeing the output from those assignments it’s darn good fun tell um Anushka can I come to you in terms of those group assignments what’s the process like how fun is that getting you all together yeah it is really fun sometimes
Um Logistics you’ve got to find the right time to get everyone together but once you have and and we’ve done presentations like Rosen just said the podcast was hilarious and and it’s quite fun presenting it back to everyone in the group because every everyone’s super supportive of each other so um
Especially my cohart everyone liks to comment on what what you’ve done um so yeah I think I think they’re a really good part of learning and it’s a nice break to know that not every single assignment you’re writing is an essay um and it allows you to learn how other
People do assignments as well so it’s you can split the workout share the load I think it’s a really good way of learning brilliant Anushka thank you and Rosena burle is saying in the chat there’s plenty of tools that we Ed to bring the group together so I think
Anushka is it fair to say that you have a WhatsApp group in your own cohort something that you organize or the group organized yes um some someone in the group organized it I think when the first day we went to the residential so we have a WhatsApp so that’s going crazy
During the lectures we’ve got the zoom chat going off and then got group chats for your specific groups as well so and everyone always posts things and we there’s the LinkedIn group that’s got all the cohorts in as well which is really great so um there’s L of ways to
Connect and you s that LinkedIn part don’t you you add stuff to that yeah so the point of the closed LinkedIn group is to create Bridges between the cohorts because that’s what we really want to be able to create and it’s it’s worth saying I didn’t say earlier that the
Resid ials happen at the same time for the different year group so in March we’ll have three different year groups on campus at the same time so they’ll be yeah hopefully about 140 people uh one from Thomas how long is the application process once submitted how long does it
Take to get a thumbs up um so the apprenticeship application is a bit longer because there’s different that you’re being assessed from two perspectives apprentiship El eligibility and academic eligibility so that can take a couple of months um and uh non apprenticeships probably about a month
But it depends on how much um how busy our admissions office is at the at the time but that sort of period so that’s reiterating my point of don’t don’t leave it to to the last minute if you want to have an offer in your hands before Christmas then um try and get
Your application in towards the end of October that’s a finger wag there don’t leave it don’t leave it one last question from Isabelle uh do students ever meet up to to work together on a group assignment good question um Lucy do you ever meet up physically outside of the
Um so we’ve just we’ve got to hand in our first group assignment which is the economics one tomorrow um and we haven’t met up for that um and everyone’s kind of spread out everywhere but people in London have met up with other people in the cohort in London so there is that
Social enement if that’s you know if that’s what you want brilliant Lucy thank you very much we could carry on these questions for hours but sadly we have run out of time I can’t believe that hours gone so quickly last last comments last pieces of advice um
Deadlines I think what Lucy said was really great don’t I was thinking about when she said don’t wait for there to be a good time um it’s a bit like having a baby there’s never a good time to have a baby and fit that all in but just to
Counter at that make sure it is the right time for you in terms of the stage you are in your life what else you’ve got going on because clearly is an extra commitment to take on over and above your work so if you’ve got you know someone you’re caring for someone who’s
Not very well in your family it just might not be the time to take on that extra responsibility um but if if that’s not the situation then then go for it um I think we we all benefit from lifelong learning um I I came back to study at
Age 40 having not done any studying for 20 years to do a PhD it gives you a new lease of life it makes you feel younger it makes you feel energized and I’m going to say almost I say I’d say over half the people maybe more now in the
First cohort have been promoted already Within 18 months of um starting the course so you know I wouldn’t want that to be your driver but that is another additional benefit of of you know continuing to develop yourself in this way brilliant we are one minute over and
I promised have finished on time so apologies for that so thank you very much for that take that advice to heart if you can uh Anushka uh Robbie and Lucy thank you very much indeed for taking time out your busy days see you online on the Friday Christina thank you very
Much indeed for that details contact Christina if you want more information the studio manager to were Marco Gomez and Robert hacket The Producers were Sophie Smiley and David Mecha my name is Toby Thompson thank you for watching