16-18
Apprenticeships
University Level
Adult Learning
The second half of Colleges Week 2023 has been all about celebrating the role colleges play in supporting the national economy.
The Association of Colleges (AoC) has chosen this as the national focus for the second week of Colleges Week 2023, using the opportunity to campaign for greater investment in further education, including at a parliamentary reception in London on Wednesday.
How does Weymouth College contribute to the local economy?
Apprenticeships
Offering an apprentice employment can deliver real returns to your bottom line – leading to lower overall training and recruitment costs, helping improve productivity and in turn making your business more competitive.
By training your own apprentice you can train them to your standards and the effort you put into their training programme is personally very rewarding.
Weymouth College’s apprenticeship programme delivers the required skills designed around your business requirements and provides the trained workers you need for the future. It can also help you to develop the specialist skills you need to keep pace with the latest technology and working practices in your sector.
For more details on becoming an employer with our apprenticeship scheme, click here.
Professional courses
Here at Weymouth College, the Dorset Training Academy was created specifically to build on the partnerships between businesses and education into the workforce at all levels – enhancing and providing the knowledge and skills that Dorset’s workforce needs to contribute to local economic growth and productivity.
We offer a wide range of professional training solutions specifically for businesses, from short courses to industry-recognised qualifications.
From health and wellbeing or mental health first aid, to people management skills and social media for business – Weymouth College’s range of adult courses offer something for all industries, in turn making a valuable contribution to the local economy.
To view the full range of courses available, click here.
Multiply
Weymouth College is also delighted to be a delivery partner in Multiply – a new government-funded programme to help adults across the UK to improve their numeracy skills in both the home and workplace.
Dorset Council recently described our delivery of the Multiply courses as “key to its efforts” in reducing the gender gap in maths skills among local schoolchildren. You can read the full BBC article here.
Jayne Barnes, Head of Adult Skills at Weymouth College, said: “The adult skills department is really proud to be working with Dorset Council on an initiative to help to close the gender gap in maths across the county.
“We are working with the council to provide bespoke and fully-funded training to provide support to parents to enhance their own maths skills and confidence so that they can help and encourage their children.
“Our Multiply courses are designed for adults who struggle with maths and have low confidence and these bespoke courses, run in collaboration with Dorset Council, will focus on not only parents but also practitioners working with children from an early years age, up to secondary school level.”
What exactly is Multiply?
Launched in 2022, Multiply offers adults access to free numeracy courses with the opportunity to build confidence using numbers in daily life, home and work and gain formal numeracy qualifications.
The courses will help you understand and improve household finances, help your children with homework, make more sense of the stats and facts in the media, or improve numeracy skills specific to your line of work.
People who improve their numeracy skills are more likely to be in employment, have higher wages and better wellbeing, and will be more able to progress to higher levels of free training to secure a skilled job in our economy.
Businesses who develop their employees’ numeracy skills can boost productivity, increase profits, and also improve employee retention. Local employers can utilise Multiply courses to upskill their existing workforces, through our range of flexible and bespoke training.
You can take part in Multiply courses if you’re aged 19+ and don’t currently have maths GCSE at grade C (or equivalent) and live in the Dorset Council area. There are courses for beginners and those who want to build on existing maths knowledge.