Swarm was established to improve the availability of apprenticeships for both learners and employers. The latest LSIP survey indicated that many businesses feel current apprenticeship programs do not meet their diverse needs, particularly for smaller companies where they require employees to perform multiple roles. In response, Swarm have developed over 30 professional business standards across various fields which allows them to tailor apprenticeships to address unique employer requirements. This includes soft skills training, all delivered online for improved accessibility, which is also available to the wider business community, not just apprentices. In the last Ofsted inspection, Swarm was rated as a GOOD provider with outstanding features, and boasts an excellent apprenticeship completion rate exceeding 70%, one of the highest in the industry! Read more including how they can help you with funding and eligibility challenges.
Please tell us a little bit about the work you’ve done with the findings of the LSIP
Swarm was set up with the fundamental aim in mind of making apprenticeships more readily available to learners and employers alike. The LSIP survey showed that businesses felt that apprenticeship programmes didn’t align with their specific business needs; a lot of small businesses need employees who wear multiple hats and the current apprenticeship standards model is more often than not, defined by one specific job role. We can’t change that but our solution is to offer over 30 + professional business standards – ranging from Marketing and Accounts all the way through to Engineering and Carpentry. Although many businesses have people who hold multiple job roles we can tailor the apprenticeship to cater as closely as possible to their unique needs. Our extensive enhanced curriculum allows us to add considerable value by responding to employer and learner needs, including those much needed soft skills, through a programme of additional CPD training offered throughout the year.
Training accessibility still remains an issue so the majority of our business apprenticeships are delivered via one to one or group webinars so anyone with an internet connection can access their learning. Our engineering centre is a ten minute walk from Norwich train station so our apprentices have multiple transport options to get to us and access the innovative Swarm Reagit centre.
We have recognised that there is a significant gap in funded training around ‘soft skills’ so for our apprenticeships we offer our comprehensive and responsive CPD programme but for the wider business community we have put together a low cost selection of accredited soft skills courses, which are delivered both remotely and physically, and can suit any budget.
We understand how confusing the funding and eligibility criteria can be, and how this can be a huge blocker for businesses wanting to train their teams so we ensure our Engagement team are fully up to date on the funding rules and can offer advice, guidance and signposting to businesses who need that help.
Business Growth Support has been a passion of Swarm since day one and we are currently putting a strong bid together to deliver several Enterprise skills bootcamps focussed on setting up, scaling and growing small to medium size businesses.
Please also provide a brief description from your Ofsted report
We were visited by Ofsted in February who came to do an audit of our provision and activities and confirmed that we are a GOOD provider. Amongst so many other things, we were proud to be able to present to them an extraordinary apprenticeship completion rate of over 70% which we know is well above the national average. The inspectors were impressed with all aspects of our provision awarding us outstanding for our leadership and management as well as outstanding for the behaviour and attitudes of our learners. One of the inspectors observed: “The stand out feature is the engagement with employers, that employers support the development of the curriculum, and that Swarm Training are meeting regional needs.”
