Ixion are part of Shaw Trust, one of the largest charities in the UK and together we believe in fairness, equality and opportunity. We believe everyone has the right to live a decent and dignified life and have the opportunity for rewarding work. As a social purpose organisation, we challenge inequality and break down barriers to enable social mobility. Shaw Trust has grown through a combination of organic growth, mergers and acquisitions to be the UK's largest Not-for-Profit (NFP) social enterprise in the employment sector.

Having grown from humble beginnings in 1982 in the village of Shaw in Wiltshire, finding jobs for disabled people, today we are a complex and diverse charity committed to employment as the core pathway to a better life. For us being part of the solution is about creating the conditions for this to happen, advocating and delivering services that make a real difference. Working in partnership not competition, we are part of an eco-system of purpose-led organisations, striving for a fairer, more equal society centred on opportunity for all. Shaw Trust was founded on these principles over 40 years ago, and for our 3,000 employees and 387 volunteers across the UK, they remain true.

Why study with us

Functional Skills Support

We have experienced Functional Skills Tutors in place, who provide additional support to all learners who require it. There are a few options for these learners; one-to-one support and group sessions being the most prevalent. The support sessions consist of teaching and learning, learning activities and mock tests to prepare the learners for their exams.

Cognassist

The Cognassist assessment is a neurodiverse assessment that is undertaken by all our apprentices at the start of their programme. It is a 30-minute digital assessment, completed using a range of different tools to identify support needs in any of the 9 domains of the brain. For example, Verbal Memory, Literacy, and Numeracy. A report is provided at the end of their assessment, which explains their results, and the assessment and gives guidance as to if any adjustments need to be made. If a learner does not identify with a need, a report is still generated so the Teaching Assessors can work with the learner's strengths and areas they scored less.

The Cognassist assessment report and support can be used to apply for reasonable adjustments at End Point Assessment and can allow additional time to be added to an apprenticeship, if necessary - depending on the number of areas the learner identifies in.

The benefits of Cognassist are huge and can be life changing. It is not just designed for the learner's learning journey; they can make changes within their workplace and their home life with what they learn. Most learners on Cognassist find the modules interesting and extremely helpful, especially when it comes to EPA.

Free Recruitment

Ixion Holdings (Part of Shaw Trust) has an experienced and dedicated Apprenticeship Recruitment Team who can assist your business in sourcing the most suitable talent for your vacancies, whether that be finding the perfect apprentice or delivering a whole recruitment campaign. We will advertise your vacancies internally exposing them to our wider group, this includes Shaw Trust, National Careers service and Prospects as well as externally on the most relevant sourcing channels such as the National Apprentieship.gov website and Indeed to establish potential candidates' drive and motivation for the apprenticeship they have applied for as well as their culture fit for your organisation.

Our Recruitment Team will keep you updated with progress throughout the recruitment process, advising of any changes which could increase candidate attraction and helping with any questions along the way. We provide feedback to the candidates and regularly liaise with the successful applicant throughout the offer stage up until our On-Boarding team takes over once a candidate has started their apprenticeship.

Additional CDP Workshops

To support learners & managers, we provide additional CDP sessions on the following below , which are delivered remotely on monthly rolling programme:

Introduction to Safeguarding & PDBA
Assignment planning and writing for success
Off the Job Training planning
SEND & Cognassist Training
Preparing for career success

Enrolment

As we operate a roll on roll off programme, we don't have a requirement of minimum number of learners as our teaching assessors/tutors will support new learners as and when they are enrolled on to the programme

Training Centre Locations

We are currently operating a blended learning model with a combination of remote delivery through the use of MS Teams and face to face delivery, where appropriate risk assessments have been completed to ensure it's a safe environment for all. We operate varying models of delivery depending on whether we enrol cohorts of learners at any one time or low volumes of enrolments throughout the month. Where we enrol cohorts of learners our preference would be to deliver a number of workshops across the length of programme supported with 1-1 meetings held each month with the employees reviewing progress made against expected progress made. Where we have individual enrolments throughout the month then we plan monthly 1-1 meetings to deliver learning as well as reviewing progress made against expected progress that should have been achieved. We plan the 1-1 review meetings with both the employee and their line manager as it's essential to have employer feedback within the review process.

To assist with our remote delivery, we also use an e-portfolio system called OneFile which all employees would use to upload evidence for the teaching assessor/tutor to review and provide feedback. We also provide employers/line managers of the employees undertaken an Apprenticeship access to OneFile so they can see first-hand how their employees are progressing with the apprenticeship at any stage of their programme.

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