Work-based learning
Early Insights
Teaching and learning
Most learners develop a wide range of practical and theory skills rapidly as a result of their workplace experiences and supportive teaching, training and assessment.
What’s going well
- Learners are motivated and enthusiastic.
- Most learners develop a comprehensive range of practical skills that they apply to their work roles well.
- Learners quickly became valued members of their employer’s staff.
- Learners develop their verbal and written communication skills well.
- Teachers, trainers and assessors use questions effectively to check learners’ knowledge and understanding and to probe and extend higher level understanding and thinking.
- Providers have a comprehensive range of teaching and learning resources, including bilingual resources.
What needs to improve
- Learners’ success and timely completion rates in health, public services and care and hospitality and catering are still too low.
- Teaching and learning of literacy, numeracy and digital skills is unhelpfully skewed towards preparation for external assessment.
- The number of learners who chose to complete written work or assessments in Welsh remains low.
- The quality of planning and target setting for learner progress and achievement is too variable.
Well-being, care, support and guidance
Providers are continually improving their procedures to ensure that learners’ well-being needs are identified and quickly met
What’s going well
- There is a comprehensive range of care, support and guidance procedures and protocols focusing on learners’ well-being.
- Assessors make regular visits to learners who are at risk of leaving their apprenticeship or behind where they should be for the stage of the programme.
- Arrangements are improving to identify and support learners with an additional learning need.
What needs to improve
- Providers do not consistently develop learners’ understanding of radicalisation and extremism.
Leading and improving
In general, leaders prioritise well and work effectively with a range of partners.
What’s going well
- Leaders have a clear focus on meeting local, regional and national priorities.
- Providers work and communicate well with their sub-contractors. They share a good range of information with sub-contractors regarding the delivery of the contract.
- Leaders engage well with industry to influence provision and develop specialist skills.
What needs to
- Self-evaluation is not always sharp enough and improvement plans are not always clear and precise enough to be able to monitor progress and measure impact.
- Lead providers do not identify and share best practice well enough with their partners, especially in teaching, training and assessment.
- Too many apprentices, especially in health and social care, are not given time by their employers to undertake off-the-job learning.
Overview of recommendations from inspections
In the 2023-2024 academic year, Estyn inspected three WBL providers.
All three were given a recommendation to improve rates at which learners complete their programmes.
Other recommendations included improving the quality of target-setting, strengthening self-evaluation and improvement planning, and ensuring that learners develop literacy and numeracy skills.
The weaker provider was given recommendations on:
- teaching, learning and assessment
- ensuring that employers meet their obligations to support the training of their apprentices
- effective and rigorous quality and oversight arrangements