GIVING its full support to the 100 in 100 Worcester News apprentices campaign is Pershore High School, which has taken on one of its former pupils as a business apprentice.

Jess Fletcher, aged 18, from Drakes Broughton, is coming to the end of her business administration apprenticeship and will be taken on as a permanent employee in July.

The school is now advertising for a business and finance apprentice, who will start at the beginning of the new academic year in September. Andrew Nock-ton, head of the school’s training school, said: “The benefits of taking on an apprentice are numerous.

“Jess brings youth and great enthusiasm to an otherwise stable and experienced support staff team.

“She only finished full-time education in July 2010 and, therefore, really understands the needs of a busy school. Young people are very quick to learn and adapt and we have seen this with Jess.

“An apprenticeship allows the business to assess the employee’s suitability for the post and train them in the specific business practices required for the role. Existing staff benefit from the opportunity to train a new employee and learn much themselves from reflecting on their own working practices.

“By ensuring our apprentice has had full experience and training in many of the school’s support staff roles, we now have a flexible employee who is confident in a wide range of tasks and is able to effectively cover for support staff absence. Jess has proved herself to be an asset to the support team.

“As training budgets become increasingly squeez-ed, an apprenticeship offers on-the-job training for the employee and the opportunity to access further training via the training provider.

“This model has been so successful that we are now offering apprentice-type training for 34 members of our existing support staff team who have been inspired to develop their own skills.”

As a training school, Pershore High School hosts an annual apprenticeship event aimed at matching students and people from the wider community with training providers and local businesses. Mr Nockton said: “In essence we act as an apprenticeship broker for our students.”