Apprentices at Pendennis Shipyard provided much needed manual labour as part of the shipyard’s initiative to support the local community during National Apprenticeship Week (NAW) 2017.

For the second year, the company’s apprentices volunteered their time to tackle tasks ranging from gardening projects to fabrication and welding work. Jill Carr, human resources director at Pendennis, said: “Each year we are encouraged to undertake a week-long promotion of apprenticeships as part of NAW. Last year we thought it would be far more beneficial for our apprentices to support local community projects. Their hard work not only provides much needed support, but raises awareness of our apprenticeship programme throughout the Falmouth area.”

Organisations that benefitted during the week included St Mary’s and St Francis Schools, where the apprentices helped to ready gardens for spring-time vegetable planting. Jacqui Scarborough, headteacher of St Mary’s said: “Many thanks to the Pendennis Shipyard apprentices who worked extremely hard in dreadful weather conditions to erect our poly tunnel. More importantly their visit raised awareness across the school community of the importance of encouraging more of our young people to consider becoming an apprentice. It also highlighted for us the success apprenticeships bring to any organisation."

St Francis also had gardening work completed. “We were very fortunate to have had six Pendennis Shipyard apprentices helping us for three days,” said business manager, Brenda Boyling. “The apprentices worked exceedingly hard, in very wet weather. They have weeded our fire pit seating area and woods, coppiced our hazel trees and tidied our foundation play area. The whole school grounds are now looking amazing due to their hard work. Not only did the apprentices do a brilliant job but they were a pleasure to have at our school. A big thank you from everyone at St Francis.”

Also to benefit was Falmouth Cricket Club, who received much needed bespoke-made drain covers courtesy of the fabrication apprentices. A further two teams of apprentices visited BF Adventure, the outdoor activity centre in Halvasso, to continue maintenance on residential containers they previously updated during NAW 2016. Tony Baker, centre manager, said: “The work the Pendennis apprentices completed was, as always, excellent. It has made a huge difference to the feel of the charity and it’s one of the jobs we cannot afford to do. Kind offers of support from local businesses and organisations save us essential money which we can reinvest elsewhere within the charity.”

Jill Carr concluded: “There may be a few sore hands and backs, and certainly the apprentices have suffered with the rain this week, however they have all really enjoyed the experience. Not only have we been able to give something back to our local area, but hopefully we have also managed to raise awareness of the varied opportunities that apprenticeships offer. All our apprentices have worked exceptionally hard and achieved so much – we are very proud of them.”