2023 Apprenticeship Awards

Joanne started her training in June 2016 enrolling on to the Level 2 Kitchen Services, and went on to complete her Level 2 Professional Cookery in 2019.

From the outset Joanne was totally committed and took on each and every task with an eagerness to succeed. She has produced a very high standard of meals and clearly demonstrated her ability in this qualification. Her commitment was rewarded with a promotion to Assistant Head Chef at The Albert, Llandudno and her new role allowed her to continue with her progression and sign up for her Level 3 Hospitality Supervision & Leadership.

Joanne worked hard to achieve Essential Skills qualifications at Level 2 for both Communication and Application of Number, as a result she has helped and supported colleagues in her team to undertake their NVQ in Hospitality qualifications too.

Joanne has been an excellent ambassador of work-based learning in the hospitality sector, she takes challenges in her stride, she shows empathy to others and helps them succeed too.

Shortly after Bryn enrolled as an apprentice the UK went into lockdown, this was a difficult time for Bryn as he had tried to focus on his learning at the same time as home schooling his daughter.

Bryn had quite basic IT skills and had never previously participated in any online learning, undeterred he completed all his theory work - all online! He also practised new dishes and recipes at home sending photo images ready for assessment when he returned to work.

Once back at work, Bryn was 100% focused to complete his practical assessments, he organised himself well and completed his qualification, he was recently promoted to Junior Sous Chef at the Trearddur Bay Hotel and hopes to progress to his Level 3 next year.

Bryn has shown himself to be motivated and committed - we wish him all the best for the future.

When he first enrolled on the apprenticeship Liam was quite a reserved young man though as we progressed through the qualification he settled in and started to show real promise, coming up with his own ideas for dishes that would cover the course criteria. He shared pictures of meals he had come up with in work and talked about how he was experimenting with flavour combinations.

Liam has thrived as an apprentice all he needed was a focus and someone to help create the spark needed to be a chef. Once he got that spark, he completely changed, he’s grown from a quiet, shy boy into a confident, respectful and committed young man who now has a passion for what he does.

During the lockdown when it would have been easy to do nothing Liam put the time to good use and revised for his exams which he passed each first time with good scores.

Assessor Tony Fitzmaurice commented:

“When I first met Liam he was a quiet and shy person but he carried on and grew in confidence especially in his professional relationships. I could see at each assessment that he was more confident with others in his kitchen. As we progressed through the qualification, he really got into it and started suggesting dishes. I’ve seen an amazing transformation in Liam, I’m very proud of what he’s achieved.”