The Heritage 2020 Framework advocated a skilled and qualified workforce of craftspeople and heritage professionals to ensure the appropriate conservation, repair and maintenance of heritage assets and to realise the full contribution of heritage to employment and growth.
Apprenticeships changed in 2017, bringing the opportunity to develop new standards and the introduction of a levy on large employers (to help fund training). The historic environment sector has worked together on the development of new standards in three areas: Archaeology, Conservation and Historic Environment Advice. By 2020 new standards had been approved for each area but before they can be used, the new standards need to be promoted to Training Providers and End-Point Assessment Organisations.
Members of the Heritage 2020 Capacity Building group produced a briefing note on the current state-of-play (at the end of 2019). This summary provides an overview of historic environment sector apprenticeships in England, including:
It is accompanied by a list of apprenticeship standards relevant to the historic environment sector and their status with the Institute for Apprenticeships (at September 2019), including those that have been developed by the Historic Environment Trailblazer. List of apprenticeship standards relevant to the historic environment sector, September 2019 (pdf)
Work on apprenticeships is ongoing and questions about the Historic Environment Trailblazer and developments beyond 2020 should be referred to Historic England.
You can find out more about the sector’s work on Apprenticeships on the Historic England website.
An event was held in London on 27th February specifically for employers who were thinking about taking on apprentices.
This event offered the opportunity for potential apprentice employers to meet with training providers, to find out more about their specific programmes and to understand how they can support their organisation in taking on and supporting heritage apprentices.
Documents from the day can be found at the bottom of this page.
The Capacity Building working group hosted an hour long chat on Apprenticeships in the historic environment sector on Twitter in October 2018. Discussions centred upon how employers should approach recruitment, how Apprenticeships can help the sector and examples of good practice. You can read a summary of the conversations here.
The sector’s joint working on Apprenticeships was kick-started by a Heritage 2020 Capacity Building working group workshop on 15th March 2017 on Apprenticeship Reform. The workshop brought together employers, training providers and professional bodies from across the sector to generate a shared level of knowledge and understanding on changes to apprenticeships by:
Presentations:
Samantha Hanna, Department for Education
Engaging with New Apprenticeship Reforms (pdf)
Sara Whybrew, Creative and Cultural Skills
Apprenticeship Reforms in England (pdf)
Barney Sloane, Historic England
Historic England and Apprenticeships (pdf)
A full summary of the day is available here (pdf).
Outcomes from the day included the development of a Historic Environment Sector ‘consortium’, designed to take an overview of both Trailblazer-related activities and Apprenticeship Standards.
You can find out more about the work of the Historic Environment Sector Trailblazer on the Historic England website.
Heritage 2020 is grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic England for their support of the day.
Find out more about the other activities of the Heritage 2020 Capacity building group here.
Bringing together senior members of staff from public and non-government bodies to work collaboratively on strategic matters for the historic environment sector.
