
Apprenticeships and beyond!
Earlier this week I got the chance to catch up with Edwin Evers to find out about his eight years at Aston Group, how came to work here and what he’s learnt in that time.
When Edwin left school he joined a college in North London to study plumbing. Unfortunately after reaching his third level the funding was cut, so the course stopped and there was no sign of it starting up again. He didn’t want to waste time so he decided to enrol on an ICT A-Level to fill the gap and began looking into other apprenticeships. He signed up to a support scheme run by Islington Council and after a year they pointed him in the direction of an apprenticeship they knew was available, for Aston Group at the Queensland Road contract in Arsenal.
He went for an interview with Bill Hayes and it went really well, so Bill offered him an apprenticeship. But Edwin had a hard decision to make. He’d been doing really well with his A-Level, already achieving good grades. Should he quit mid-course to take the apprenticeship he had always wanted or stick with a course he was showing skill at and see it through? Being the sort of person who says he likes to finish what he starts, it was a tough choice. Luckily, Bill knew this was weighing on his mind and wanting to find a solution that worked for Edwin had a meeting with Bill Shaw. They agreed that offering him the option to complete his course while also starting his apprenticeship was the best solution for everyone. A real win win for Edwin and a great sign that working at Aston Group would offer the type of support he was after in his career.
So Edwin joined Aston Group on the 19th March 2012 (as it’s also his mother’s birthday, he can’t forget!) and has been with us ever since.
Queensland Road was a perfect start to his career, being a new large development with state of the art technology. Luckily, it was also just down the road from his college, so he could go to work from 8-12 in the morning then complete his ICT course in the afternoon. True dedication! After a year, the college part of the apprenticeship began and Edwin was in a fairly unique position of already having a years worth of industry experience under his belt.
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