Meet Kadie, an apprentice in our Waste Prevention team…
Because I live in Buckinghamshire, I’ve grown up being aware of Buckinghamshire Council.
It kind of seemed like this really big, intimidating place — I would drive past the Walton Street offices and think: “Why is that there? What goes on in that building?” I’m also autistic — the council used to arrange transportation for me to attend schools outside of the county, so I knew about that service.
I am doing a Business Administrator Level 3 course, which involves completing about 20 modules of learning.
Each module takes about a month to complete. After we’ve finished our written learning, we have to work on a project which must be based on something that will benefit our workplace directly. We also do an interview in which we present our portfolio and talk about what we’ve done, and we have about 12 months to prepare that.
Working flexible hours means that provided I reach 37 hours a week, I can choose when to do my study.
I can start early, start late, finish early, or finish later. I delegate a few days a month to my module work and then the rest of the time I spend completing tasks that have been appointed to me by my line manager. This gives me time to enjoy things that I want to do outside of work.
We also have apprenticeship groups, which is a great way to meet other apprentices and help each other out and share ideas.
I’ve made friends with another apprentice who started the same day as me. We’re in the same apprenticeship group so we do all of our module work together. If I have any problems with my work or if I’m not sure how to do something, it’s great to have someone else to ask about it. Another person in our apprenticeship group works in Transport, so that allows me to communicate with someone that I wouldn’t normally talk to directly.
Being autistic, I never felt like I fitted in at any of the schools I went to.
When I joined the council, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people were understanding and nice to me. Once, I was taking the lift and I got lost — both sides of the building are very similar, which really confused me at first! People gave me directions and made sure I was okay and that I knew where I was going. It was nice of the staff to take some time out of their day to show that they care.
There are lots of opportunities to branch out in an apprenticeship, too.
I’m shadowing another team soon, and I’ve volunteered with a few different groups. Recently, I did a tree replanting activity, and have been offered the opportunity to learn how to be a fire warden, which should be fun. If you gain that as a skill, it’s transferable and you’ll always have it. And as I said before, it’s been quite nice getting to know people. Everyone’s been very welcoming.
Taking an apprenticeship has given me the opportunity to gain work experience and develop my skills whilst being paid.
I have a goal to save up so I can rent with my partner, so this is a way of building a future for myself whilst learning valuable workplace skills.
Keep up with apprenticeships & opportunities on offer at Buckinghamshire Council and find out more about career development: https://jobs.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/
