Apprenticeship Bus

This initiative was started in 2018, when we visited three schools and met with 84 students. In the years since we have seen the number of Portsmouth schools involved significantly grow. Due to restrictions in 2021 a virtual Bus tour using video technology was undertaken with each school maintaining our commitment to providing support for Apprenticeships. The bus returned to the road in 2022, running every year since.

The feedback received from the schools is overwhelmingly positive, and has enabled us to continue to create an Apprenticeship Roadshow that the students of Portsmouth have asked for. All schools visited stated that the event had had a positive impact on their pupils and that the pupils had learned more about apprentices as a result. 

School staff said that they could also see their students’ attitudes changing in the room during the session with their confidence growing considerably, and there was a real buzz in the room by the end of the hour. Others said that students were surprised by the variety of apprenticeships that were available, having assumed they were all in trades and engineering, and that now a significant number had their hearts set on an apprenticeship.

In 2023 we were proud to introduce Simon Ingram, Managing Director of Mountjoy, as our volunteer Programme Lead. Shaping Portsmouth, working in partnership with Portsmouth City Council, worked tirelessly to develop and deliver an impactful programme visiting 10 of our Portsmouth senior schools in February 2024, and continue t0 work on an even bigger and better roadshow each year.

The local Portsmouth businesses get to link up with talented Year 10s and 11s, and the students get the chance to find out exactly what opportunities lie ahead of them as they choose their further educational route and future career.