Leaving school at sixteen and unsure which work route to take, Rebecca Kelly sought expert help to make sure she didn’t get lost on the career path.

And the advice and guidance she received from Access Training have certainly helped her to map a fast track to the top with her employer, Harker’s Transport.

As soon as Access helped her secure an apprenticeship role in administration with the haulage firm Rebecca, from Washington, felt she was on the right road.

She quickly adapted to the mixture of education and practical experience, passing her first administration qualification with flying colours. Not wanting to stop there, she threw herself into another apprenticeship, this time in customer service and then onto a team leading course, before undertaking an advanced apprenticeship in management.

Completing her skills set with a Chartered Management Institute qualification, Rebecca, now 23, really got into top gear, completing the rise from customer services representative to administration manager in just five years.

She said: “After leaving school and trying college for a short period I knew full-time education wasn’t for me. Being able to combine learning with work was great, as I got more variety and hands on experience.

“I wanted to work my way up with the company and when I completed one qualification I was eager to start another. Being able to put the knowledge and skills I have gained into practice has helped me in and out of work, and I would now like to become general manger.”

With firm intentions of continuing her education, Rebecca is now planning to begin her sixth qualification with Access Training, this time a level 4 NVQ in customer service, taking her to degree level.

Kevin Harker, managing director at Harkers Transport said: “Rebecca’s determination and drive to achieve has enabled her to develop into a very competent manager. The qualifications she has gained through Access Training have proved to be a great investment for Rebecca and Harkers as a business, particularly in the way she deals with our customers.

“She also offers guidance to her colleagues, some of whom are fellow trainees hoping to achieve the same standards she has set, and I see her being able to develop further into a general manager’s position in the future.”

Yvonne Proctor at Access Training, added: “Rebecca proves that work based learning is a great way to combine skills development and practical experience – a combination which can deliver speedy progress and quick rewards.”

We are now based in a multi million pound Skills Academy on Kingsway, Team Valley.

We share these fantastic new facilities with Gateshead College and a number of our partners within the Gateshead Collective (a consortium of local training providers).

The Skills Academy has excellent training and conference facilities, which means we can offer a high quality service to all of our clients.

Our tenth Celebration Evening was held on 12 June at St James’ Park in Newcastle. The evening was a resounding success with learners of all ages receiving certificates for qualifications which were achieved during the last year.

There were also several special awards for those learners and individuals who particularly impressed our judging panel.

Apprentice of the Year 2007 – 2008
Victoria Seaman



Employer of the Year 2007 – 2008
T & G Allan



Personal Achiever of the Year
Deborah Lillie



Adult Learner of the Year
Terry McKenzie



Award for Career Development 2007 – 2008
Emma Wilkes

One of the region’s longest established and most successful retailers is sold on training which it believes is supporting business development in an increasingly competitive market place.

T & G Allan, which this year celebrates its 150th anniversary, is taking advantage of the Train to Gain service which is being promoted as part of a government’s drive to improve the skills of the UK’s workforce.

With grants on offer to help meet costs, the company has called in Access Training to deliver pilot programmes in customer care and team leadership for 19 staff at its stores in Whitley Bay and Morpeth.

The results will determine whether the stationery and gifts retailer signs up to extend the programme to its 32 branches of The Pen Shop. This is Europe's largest chain of writing instrument stores which are spread throughout the UK and one of only two pen shop chains in the world.

Operations manager, Keith Gilfillan, commented: “I have always been an advocate of training in the workplace having headed up staff training at a major department store, so I know the benefits it can deliver.

“I think we are already beginning to see improvements in our team working and customer services and I know that our team leaders and managers are very impressed by what they have discovered. I have no doubt everyone has a better understanding of the business and their role within it.”

Malcolm Armstrong, Managing Director of Access Training added: “It’s great to see such a long established company moving with the times and developing its people to work in today’s fast changing business environment. I’m sure this has contributed to the success of the business over the years and continues to do so.

Access Training provides excellence in vocational learning, encouraging individual career development to support North East employers. Specialising in work based training it provides, in partnership with ITEC North East and Gateshead College, the only Centre of Vocational Excellence for Business and Management in the region. It has helped over 4,000 young people into employment.

Train to Gain is a service jointly funded in the North East by the LSC and One NorthEast and is designed to help businesses get the training they need to succeed. The cornerstone of Train to Gain is a skills brokerage service which includes free impartial advice and help in finding the best training to meet business needs and improve skills.

The service offers impartial advice and matches training needs to local learning providers, to ensure that flexible, responsive training programmes are delivered to meet employers’ needs. A core element of Train to Gain is the access to appropriate funding of Skills for Life, first Level 2 NVQs, Level 3 NVQs and Management and Leadership learning opportunities.

With the support of the LSC, and single programme funding through the Tyne and Wear Partnership, we are moving to a new multi million pound Skills Academy on Kingsway, Team Valley. We are sharing these fantastic new facilities with Gateshead College and a number of our partners within the Gateshead Collective (a consortium of local training providers). While the Skills Academy will be a base for our staff and learners, we also have improved training and conference facilities, which should ensure we can offer an improved service to all of our clients. Our new address is:

Access
Gateshead Skills Academy
8th Avenue
Kingsway
Team Valley
GATESHEAD
NE11 0JL

We have also taken the opportunity to develop a ‘new look’ to coincide with our move. We have new logos / brands and materials which we feel reflect a new modern company. We have also introduced a group structure to Access which we feel better represents / differentiates our products.

To help us implement these important changes we have recently made 2 internal appointments. Alan Dent has been appointed Training Manager and will be responsible for all of our training staff. Alan brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience in the effective delivery of training programmes, and has recently celebrated 20 years with the company. Chris Scott has been appointed Operations Director, and will be responsible (among many other things) for the implementation (through our Business Solutions team) of a new employer engagement strategy, ensuring our training delivery is increasingly compatible and responsive to the needs of business.

We are entering a very exciting period in the company’s history and we look forward to working with the many friends and colleagues we have developed in the last 25 years, to ensure that businesses in the region continue to flourish, and that we support them to do so, through working with and developing their people.

Working for specialist adventurewear manufacturer Berghaus and as a part time model, Amy Snowdon knows how important it is to have the right kit.
So when it came to planning her career, she knew she’d need to get the right guidance and qualifications to reach her ultimate goal of running her own recruitment business.

Amy turned to Access Training, based in Team Valley, Gateshead, who introduced her to Berghaus where she was steered her through an appropriate training programme.

And now, with the help of training assessor Brian Diver, the 18-year-old from Red House in Sunderland is cramming her qualifications kit bag with the certificates which will open doors in the world of business.

She began with an Advanced Apprenticeship in Business Administration and then, with Brian’s encouragement, moved on to a three year BA Business and Human Resource Management degree at Sunderland University.

Amy feared she’d need to give up the job she enjoyed so much to make space for her lectures but Access Training again stepped in and managed to negotiate a part time contract so that work and study can be balanced.

Said Amy: “My goal is to go into human resources management and eventually have my own recruitment business, but I wasn’t sure how I would ever get there. Brian has always come up with the right advice and options and I really feel I’m heading in the right direction. “

He added: “I wanted Amy to stay with Berghaus because it is an international company with a great graduate scheme that she may be able to fast track once she completes her course. I spoke to her line manager because I knew how much the job would help her and they would get to keep an employee they value. Amy has shown she has amazing potential in business.”
Amy’s manager at Berghaus, Affy Alldred said: “She knows the systems really well and has built up good relationships with everyone, colleagues and customers alike. She had worked hard so we wanted to accommodate her learning schedule into part time hours.

“We are keen to encourage employees to take up learning and new skills as it brings benefits to both and helps people get experience. Amy can offer her Berghaus experience to classmates and will eventually be able to bring academic knowledge into the workplace, which is mutually beneficial.”

The academic aspiration in Amy does not end with one university course, as she aims to begin a Masters degree in Business or Human Resources when she completes her current three year programme. During that time, she also hopes to take up the opportunity to study in the US for one year as an exchange student, to broaden her business knowledge to an international level.
Success stories such as Amy’s have helped Access to gain Matrix accreditation which is the unique quality framework for the effective delivery of information, advice or guidance on learning and work.

Access aims to provide excellence in vocational learning, encouraging individual career development and supporting the north east employer base. It has helped over 4,000 young people into employment through apprenticeships.

Access Keep Customers Satisfied

Obtaining Customer Feedback is important to any business seeking to continuously improve its service. Access Training use a number of methods to gain feedback from its customers (learners and employers), and other stakeholders. For the last 7 years we have used a series of customer questionnaires which are analysed and an Annual report is produced to show satisfaction ratings, trends and areas for improvement.

Malcolm Armstrong (Managing Director) explains “I personally review every questionnaire that is returned and ensure we follow up any concerns raised on an individual basis. Thankfully, concerns are few and far between, and I seem to spend more time handing out praise to staff for compliments given”.

In previous years we have been able to establish areas where we need to improve and have taken actions to do just that. Improvements to our ICT and social facilities for learners, our approach to selecting apprentices, and initial assessment practices have all been targets for improvements as a result of previous feedback and subsequent reports have confirmed actions have been effective.

This years report was based on feedback taken from 143 returned questionnaires (including 58 from employers).

Overall satisfaction ratings for learners and employers are as follows:

If you would like to make a comment about this survey or any other web page, please click on the COMMENT link below.

Please have a look around our website by using the homepage category list or by clicking on the NEXT link at the top and bottom of this web page.

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Driving up productivity are Traidcraft staff (Back row - front to rear)
John Logan, Michael Lutter, Andrzej Smok,
Zenen Santana-Delgado and Sharon Pearson
(Front row - front to rear)
Christina Ward, Alison Nesbitt, Jeanette Brenkley,
Maureen Helm, Amelia Lowery, Julie Harpin, Julia Place and Lynda Deeks.

Thinking outside the box has helped Traidcraft, the fair trade organisation based in the North East, increase the number of packages it can deliver by about 10,000 a year.

This five per cent increase will help the Team Valley distribution centre meet the growing demand for the developing world products it supplies to its customers throughout the UK.

It has been achieved through an innovative programme of training and flexible working which has improved the skills and motivation of over 16 per cent of the staff employed at Traidcraft’s Tyneside headquarters.

The latest initiative - involving staff working across six different departments - has been NVQ Level 2 and 3 training in team leading, warehousing and distribution, customer service, business administration and IT, all delivered by Access Training.

Christine Borley, Traidcraft Director of Human Resources, said: ‘We have people here from different backgrounds including some from overseas whose first language is not English. Effective training not only improves skills, it creates a greater cohesiveness among the workforce, improving communication and motivation. The results have been impressive and, as a result, we are well prepared for our busiest season.”

In addition, Traidcraft has introduced extremely flexible working packages to help its staff balance work and family life, including part-time, flexi-time, job-share, annualised hours and home working.

Access Training rose to the challenge of fitting the programme around these arrangements. Chris Scott, Training Manager, said: “We began by talking with Traidcraft to understand what it wanted to achieve. This enabled us to identify the areas and types of training which would best deliver results and then we had to devise very flexible delivery.

“The workforce has responded very positively which has helped them to deliver impressive improvements in productivity.”

• Access Training specialises in providing work based training to improve individual and company performance. In partnership with ITEC North East and Gateshead College, it forms the only Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) for Business and Management in the North East, providing high quality training which meets employers’ skills needs.

• Traidcraft fights poverty through trade, helping people in developing countries to transform their lives. As the UK’s leading fair trade organisation, it provides the widest range of fair trade products - from food and drink, to clothes and crafts. It works in partnership with hundreds of small-scale fair trade producers in nearly 30 developing countries, committed to lasting relationships and helping build sustainable businesses.
Traidcraft Website

• Skillfast-UK is the sector skills council for fashion and textiles who is working with the Learning and Skills Council to promote learning and development through their Future Textiles initiative. The Future Textiles initiative enabled Traidcraft to access fully funding training as clothing and jewellery are among the products handled.
Skillfast-UK website

Access Training is pleased to announce that we have recently been awarded the matrix accreditation for the quality and effective delivery of information, advice and guidance to learners.

Matrix accreditation is for 3 years, and during this time we will be looking to continuously develop the quality of the service we provide.

Access Training are one of the first private training providers in the region to have undergone an inspection by Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education).

To view the complete inspection report, please click on the following link: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/pdf/?inspectionNumber=317115&providerCategoryID=268435456&fileName=\\school\\50\\wbli 50314 20070903.pdf

Access Training is delighted to have been awarded the Customer First quality mark for excellence in customer service. In order to achieve the award, Access Training was assessed against 32 Statements which were divided into 3 core elements - Customer Relationships, Market Awareness and People.

Putting the Customer First ® demonstrates that our organisation is committed to the needs of customers and is driven by making a positive difference to the customers we support.

Our customers will

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