Ellie Frankel

Ellie Frankel from Education Group (Widening Participation) has recently completed the Level 5 Operations Manager programme, gaining a distinction in their end point assessment. Here are their thoughts on their apprenticeship experience:

I have found the dedicated time to reflect on my learning and development really helpful. It's something that I feel we really overlook when we're in the thick of our day to day roles. Whilst there may be times to reflect e.g. in our PDRs, the apprenticeship gave me regular, dedicated time to consider the way I am approaching things as a manager, how I support my team, how I manage myself and my own workload and for my specific course, it gave me a really well rounded perspective on operational management.

One of our modules was looking at emotional intelligence, the way we respond to things in the workplace and how we regulate our own emotions at work. I actually took this back to my team and ran a community of practice session with them where we explored the differences between reacting and responding to scenarios such as emails, last minute asks, busy periods at work. I found it really insightful and feedback from the team was that it was a useful thing to discuss together about how we all are as human beings.

Since being on my apprenticeship, as a manager, I have managed to implement quite a few structured processes that had been missing beforehand. We now have clear templates for things like project plans, financial tracking and forecasting and diarised, regular communities of practice. Deadlines are much clearer across our team where we had historically seen a struggle with clarity around task deadlines, this has meant KPIs are being met and I have also just put into place a full academic year delivery plan that demonstrates all of this.