Publish date: 18 March 2021
Former apprentice, Tim Hayward has achieved the highest-grade level in the Level 5 Leadership Management Apprenticeship. We caught up with him to hear all about his latest success…
I’m currently on an 18-month secondment with the University of Cumbria helping to set up a new type of Radiographer Apprenticeship focussed on upskilling existing Assistant Practitioners to Radiographers.
I recently completed a Level 5 Leadership Management Apprenticeship, with a distinction grade which I started in 2018. Over the duration of my apprenticeship, I was the Clinical Tutor for Radiography students at Northumbria, a trust-wide role organising placements across our sites to ensure students are progressing at the right level and that all necessary assessments are being completed. In addition to managing the students, I had to ensure radiographers had relevant mentoring and assessing training to provide quality training for our students. I also work as a specialist radiographer working with the fantastic multidisciplinary team in the Cardiac Catheter Lab.
An apprenticeship was suggested to me by my line manager as I wanted more formal teaching on Leadership and Management. Working as an apprenticeship allowed me to stay in my normal role alongside it. Other than the set taught days there was a lot of flexibility in working on other aspects of the course.
I met some fantastic people in my cohort from a wide variety of professions and backgrounds, which made for some great discussions and interesting insights.
Coronavirus did have an impact on student training; we had some students pulled from placements altogether, whereas others close to qualifying were signed off early to get them into the workforce. This was a complicated process but I had excellent support from HR and our Chief AHP. We are now at a stage where placements are mostly back to normal and those who lost clinical time are back up to speed.
I’ve always been enthusiastic about training students. It is vital students are trained to a high standard so they are capable and confident when they undertake their roles. It’s also important to make sure students feel valued and enjoy their time on placement as there is a national shortage of radiographers and this helps with our recruitment.
Over the last year, I’ve had a lot of involvement in radiographer apprenticeships, collaborating with various local workgroups to shape what we want out of apprenticeships and to try and get them off the ground. This led to the University of Cumbria asking me to work with them. I don’t think I’d be doing this if I hadn’t undertaken my Leadership and Management apprenticeship; it gave me the skills and confidence needed to get here.
I believe I achieved the highest-grade level, distinction, due to the fact that since the beginning of my apprenticeship I’ve really challenged myself to improve the way I work and learn from past lessons. This gave me a wide variety of evidence for my portfolio, and lots to talk about in the Professional Discussion part of the End Point Assessment. I was also really well supported by my manager, mentors and other members of my cohort.
I now have so much more confidence in myself – I’m not frightened or ashamed to acknowledge when I don’t know something or need help. I can better control my own emotions and now take a step back when needed, resisting getting stressed about things that are outside of my control. This has totally changed my outlook and approach to everything I do as a Clinical Tutor, my new role, and also outside of work.