The names of the first seven foundation apprenticeships have been revealed.
A list of the new apprenticeships, which are designed to be an entry route for young people, was published on the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s website today.
They all have a typical duration time of eight months and their funding bands range from £3,000 to £4,500.
However, each foundation apprenticeship has a message from IfATE which states that “shorter duration apprenticeships like this one will only be possible once the legislation changes to allow for durations below 12 months”.
Once this happens, Skills England will “formally confirm this apprenticeship is available for use”.
The earliest start date for each foundation apprenticeship is August 1, 2025, according to IfATE’s website.
Starts on the apprenticeship will also only be possible once a suitable end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) has obtained Ofqual recognition. “Once the EPAO has obtained Ofqual recognition, funding for apprentice starts will be permitted and this message will be removed.”
IfATE’s website confirms that foundation apprenticeships are employed positions.
Each foundation apprenticeship “provides a mix of employability skills and behaviours, technical knowledge and skills, and associated English and maths”. Typical progression routes will “likely include employment or progression onto another skills product such as a level 2 or level 3 apprenticeship”.
Employers who take on a foundation apprentice qualify for up to £2,000 per foundation apprentice, subject to retention and progression.
The DfE’s apprenticeship funding rules were published last week and revealed that young foundation apprentices who did not achieve a grade 4 pass at GCSE will be required to continue studying the subjects during their training, but they will not be forced to sit exams.
Great shame that the care foundation apprenticeship is significantly more poorly funded. To get the required visits to the workplace and training requires high calibre staff and while we underfund we will struggle to get the level of training that could be achieved.
It is shocking that the challenges of the Health and Social Care Sector are so undervalued by civil servants whose ignorance and judgemental attitude displays no boundaries!
The funding band of course had to be £3000 because they couldn’t value it the same as the shockingly low “full” apprenticeship band. Two wrongs don’t make this right !!
The cost of delivering apprenticeships is dominated by staffing costs and support systems. Bands cannot be justifiable differentiated by the cost of other differences across occupations which are mostly perceived and not real anyway. Time is money whether teaching and assessing or spent in maintaining support systems which are the same for all provision! Which other cost, for example, would come anywhere close to the 28+% employer contribution to the pension of those delivering or supporting these programmes in FE colleges for example ?