ARCHIVE - ARTICLES 2010

December 10 - Value in Dialogue - ATF Conference, Myerscough College

 

Archive - Forge Magazine - December 2010
Value in Dialogue
ATF Conference, Myerscough College

By Charles Mann

The role of the Approved Training Farrier (ATF) can be a lonely one, despite the fact that the college and the National Farriery Training Agency also have a hand in the development of the apprentice.
Nonetheless, when you talk to some ATFs you might be forgiven for perceiving their role as being over policed and lacking in tangible support - an ‘us and them’ environment.
With an imposing set of changes to the apprenticeship framework to be rolled out, as well as changes to the CARP (College Attendance and Referral Policy) a selection of ATFs assembled at Myerscough in October not quite sure what to expect.
By all accounts, it would seem that they need not have been concerned, and the only pity was that less than a quarter of their number were able to attend.
In a pretty packed day, the morning was taken up with presentations about the teaching of theory at college by Mark Caldwell FWCF and a comprehensive update on the science and practical treatment of laminitis from Dr Celia Marr PhD, MRCVS and Simon Curtis FWCF HonAssoc (RCVS) respectively.
Over lunch the ATF’s took part in a shoemaking standards setting exercise that led nicely into Stephen Newman FWCF talking about teaching shoemaking.
Neville Higgins, NFTC Operations Manager and Nicky Butcher, NFTA Programme Manager, then addressed the new apprenticeship framework and the CARP.
Changes to the apprenticeship framework are largely imposed because National Occupational Standards have to be reviewed every three years. In addition, all Government Apprenticeship frameworks are changing in 2011 along with a requirement to embrace new legislation.
There is a lot of detail to absorb and to the layman the subtle changes in terminology might be bordering on semantics. Indeed, Nicky did reassure her audience that “in real terms there will be no real change in what’s taught; apprentices and ATF’s should see no major differences.”
However, like it or not, this is the environment apprenticeships have to be conducted in and ATFs at the conference seemed prepared to accept that change had to be embraced. In his closing remarks, Howard Cooper FWCF OBE, Chairman of NFTA Management Board said that the new framework is “a lot of bureaucracy, but we have to take it seriously and implement it.”
ATFs could do worse than to make good use of the expertise at the NFTA to help them make a smooth and painless transition to the new system.
At last year’s conference and subsequently, there has been considerable debate about standards of entry to the apprenticeship scheme.
From 2014 the requirements are likely to be the addition of a mandatory science GCSE in addition to the existing four at Grade C or above. Questions from the floor revealed a concern that the access course, which is the entry route for around half the candidates, did not set a standard that was equivalent to the GCSE requirement. The course is currently under review by LANTRA.
How to deal with substandard performance has also generated a lot of debate. The presentation on CARP stimulated a number of questions from the floor and a ATFs expressed concerns that it might have become too harsh.
The so called ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy is simply to reduce the amount of retakes and ‘back blocking’, which is costly for everyone involved and potentially retains unsuitable candidates in the system.
Nonetheless, after a significant amount of dialogue it was apparent that the new CARP system on the whole did reflect what ATFs had been asking for. There seemed to be general agreement that it had been improved.
Speaking to Forge Magazine at the conference, BFBA Vice President Gary Burton DipWCF said that he felt that the changes would benefit farriery in general by raising the entry standards and reducing the relatively high level of failures at both college and diploma stages. “The ‘two strikes and you’re out’ will also emphasise to apprentices that they can’t just sit on their hands and eventually hope to get through. They are going to have to make the grade within a very short time scale,” he said.
BFBA has run series of very successful pre-diploma ‘mock’ exams with WCF examiners for apprentices in the latter stages of their training. Gary confirmed that this remained important in the context of the changes. “The assessments at college are fairly low key – that was indicated today by one of the tutors who said that they are in their home environment and time is not such an issue. What we (BFBA) have successfully done is imitate a proper Diploma examination to give apprentices a experience of what it will be like on the day. They also get tips and feedback to give them chance to go away and make improvements in the weaker areas. It has proved very popular.”
Reflecting on the conference, Neville Higgins said that one of the challenges was the spread of ATFs and hence the difficulty in getting together to have face to face discussions. He said, “This is an opportunity for ATFs to ask those questions they don’t normally get chance to ask. I hope they will take this back to their apprentices to help them better understand how the apprenticeship works.”
“This also gives the ATFs the opportunity to come in and discuss their views and hopefully come up with a consensus of how they feel the apprenticeship should move forward in the future. That can only be good for everybody.”
“Today we had well thought out questions from the ATFs and it was good to be able to address them. I hope that today everyone has gone away with a little more knowledge than they had before,” Neville concluded.

Mark Caldwell FWCF

Stephen Newman FWCF

Simon Curtis FWCF

Question time at the ATF Conference