Building a better future was the headline of last weeks National Apprenticeship Week. The aim of last week was to put Apprenticeships firmly back on the map and instil their value amongst key people – teachers, parents and the students themselves.Here at Fulcher Edwards, we're very passionate about apprenticeships – in fact we're committed to ensuring that each of our electrician apprentices build a better future. The Managing Director here at Fulcher Edwards, Michael Fulcher was an apprentice once himself so he knows first hand the value of electrician apprenticeships and the career opportunities that can arise once the person is qualified.
This week, we're opening our doors to the 'inner workings' of Fulcher Edwards and what better place to start than by introducing our electrician apprentices to you. They're all being expertly trained by all our electricians here in London and we're pleased to say, that our electricians do stay with us. In fact Fred who is one of our senior electricians, has been with us for many years following completion of his apprenticeship and is a great asset to our company. Managing Director Michael remains very hands on and is always giving practical and technical advice to our engineers and apprentices.
We have two electrician apprentices with us at the moment:
Bobby first contacted us about an apprenticeship when he was 15 years old and awaiting his GCSE results. His apprenticeship started with us in July 2009 and his college course began in the September where he would would take 1 day out a week to attend Bromley college. Nearly 4 years later and Bobby is still with us but he is now a fully qualified electrician. He is of course still learning but now has certain jobs he is able to carry out by himself and he even has his own role at the company by carrying out the monthly emergency lighting maintenance at our offices in Waterloo and what was the old international terminal where Eurostar was based. This is a vast area of space that is still maintained by Fulcher Edwards Ltd and Bobby not only carries out the testing but any remedial works required and relevant paperwork like updating log books and certificates. Bobby is furthering his education by now taking another course in Level 3 Electric & Electronic Engineering at North West Kent College.
Alex started with us in January this year and had already completed his Level 2 however he had no practical experience what so ever and works alongside our fully qualified electricians whilst learning the technical at college. These last couple of months Alex has been very keen to learn and has already been involved in many different projects by assisting our electricians in domestic and commercial projects. He is currently taking his level 3 at OLCI Construction College. We generally take on apprentices from the early stages of their course but we could see Alex was eager to learn the practical and unfortunately due to the economic climate he had not been given the opportunity and been let down with other work placements in the past.
At Fulcher Edwards we have always taken on electrician apprentices since the business was established back in 1981. We have heard the stories about apprentices who complete their training and don't stay, however we have not had that problem. As a family business we treat our apprentices as part of our family and by doing this they have felt part of who we are and stay with us. We provide investment and support every one of our London electricians and we firmly believe this pays off and this is why we fully see the benefit of taking on apprentices. We have had apprentices of all ages start with us over the last 30 years and every one of them has gained the experience required that we feel makes a great electrician.
It is important to us here at Fulcher Edwards that we continue to help the industry by training and passing on valuable skills to the next generation of electricians and helping them to build a better future.
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