Second and third years
In the second and third years of the scheme, you’ll be working
as part of an engineering maintenance team in your chosen location.
At the same time, you’ll be working towards NVQ Level 3 in Railway
Engineering, and this will involve a combination of rail-specific
technical courses, work experience and formal assessments.
This is the time when the first year of your technical training
will come into its own. You’ll be out and about working with
experienced colleagues, possibly in teams of four or five. The work
is mainly outdoors, and that’s one of the things that appeals to
our apprentices.
You’ll be ‘one of the team’. So you’ll need to make sure you
work well in a group and take on responsibility when you need to,
while learning from the people around you. There’ll be a wide
variety of work involved in what you’re doing; and because you’ll
also be studying for an NVQ, you’ll need to manage your time
well.
Several times a year, you’ll also return to HMS Sultan to attend
rail-specific technical training courses, using the wide range of
railway equipment on site. These will be run by a team of
experienced rail engineers. In the third year, in addition to
completing further technical training, there’ll be specific
supervisory training. This includes a dedicated five-day
leadership-training course, which can help towards the achievement
of the ILM Level 3 in First Line Management.
There’s a lot to take in and a lot of responsibility to take on.
But by the end of the scheme, you’ll have the foundation to make a
real mark within Network Rail.