News14th February 2025

Ark Learning Institute marks National Apprenticeships Week 2025

To coincide with National Apprenticeships Week 2025, the Ark Learning Institute hosted an apprenticeships roundtable at EdCity. 

Ark Learning Institute

The roundtable brought together education policy experts and colleagues from multi-academy trusts including Ark, Aspirations Academies Trust, Ebor Academies Trust, Harris Federation, Lift Schools, Oasis Community Learning and United Learning  – together representing nearly 350 schools across the country, from the Isle of Wight to Hull. 

It was great timing for the group, as the same day Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that adults over 19 will no longer need to complete English and maths functional skills qualifications to finish their courses.  

Apprenticeships are an important pathway for attracting, developing and retaining educational professionals in the sector. Whether training teachers or business managers, this new flexibility has been welcomed by the sector and will undoubtably result in growth in this area. 

Tuesday’s roundtable kicked off with an engaging presentation from Holly Papworth at Edge Foundation, looking at how government policy is working in practice. 

Then there was time to network and share thoughts and ideas about what’s working – and not working – on the ground. 

This session was the first time that leading MATs have come together on this topic – and marked just the beginning for this network of professionals to collaborate more regularly as a sector.     

Paul Bridge from Lift Schools said, “Today was brilliant to look at shared challenges, shared opportunities and come together as a sector to deliver some really powerful programmes.” 

Sue Hinchcliffe from Ebor Academies Trust agreed, “It’s been great just to be sat around a table with people working in the same apprenticeship space, sharing thoughts, ideas, challenges, networking and building relationships that we can hopefully make better use of as we go forward.” 

And Holly Papworth from Edge Foundation added, “It’s really nice to take a break away from thinking about national policy, speak to your apprenticeship leads working in different MATs across the country and really get a sense of what’s happening on the ground and how national policy is influencing the day-to-day.” 

Ark’s Head of Public Affairs, Caroline Doherty, chaired the event. She said, “As both employers of apprenticeships and promoters of the apprenticeship pathway to our students, trusts have an interesting role to play It was a treat to facilitate such a buzzy conversation with an engaged group of specialists. 

“The roundtable showcased just the kind of progressive hub EdCity can be – connecting people to share great ideas and practice, to enable change and make a lasting impact.”