13th Feb 2025
This National Apprenticeship Week, we’re celebrating one of our own, Bronwen Einon, for her recent success at the prestigious University of Oxford Apprenticeship Awards, winning in the Tutor/Training Coordinator/Mentor award category.
Joining Abingdon & Witney College just a year ago, Bronwen teaches both English and maths Functional Skills to a wide-range of apprentices across the College. She has already made a huge impact in supporting apprentices, helping them grow in confidence and achieve beyond their expectations.
Bronwen started teaching in a primary school before teaching Functional Skills for another training provider. Teaching Functional Skills can be challenging as ages currently range from sixteen years old to those in their forties, with apprentices from diverse fields like Construction and Team Leading together in the same class. Additionally, differing ranges of abilities mean pitching the lessons at the appropriate level can be tricky.
Bronwen herself struggled with maths at school and had extra classes at lunchtime. It was only when she trained as a primary school teacher, and was taught different learning methods, that it began to make sense. Bronwen is now an especially supportive and empathetic teacher due to her own experiences.
Even though Bronwen teaches apprentices over a short seven week period, seeing learners’ progression over this time, and how their understanding grows until they finally ‘get it’ is extremely rewarding. It was one such learner, Claire, a Level 3 HR apprentice, who nominated Bronwen for the award.
Describing Claire’s progress, Bronwen reflected:
“In week one she was very nervous, having had a poor experience at school with maths. She didn’t pass her Functional Skills first time but was determined, and on second attempt she achieved the highest mark in the class.”
In Claire’s nomination of Bronwen, she wrote:
“Bronwen has made a phenomenal impact on my confidence and progress during my apprenticeship. I have struggled with Dyspraxia my whole life; I failed maths at GCSE and completely lost any self-belief. I was aware I had to pass my maths to complete my apprenticeship and this prospect was so daunting I thought I should just give up now as I will never do it. Bronwen went out of her way to make sure I was okay and understood everything and gradually built up my confidence. Bronwen is such an amazing person and deserves to be celebrated”
For Claire this was huge as her career had been previously curtailed due to her not having a maths qualification, and now she is going on to study for her Level 5 HR apprenticeship.
On winning, Bronwen shared:
" I feel truly privileged to have won this award. As a team, we work hard to create the best possible experiences for our apprentices. It is such a pleasure seeing them grow in confidence throughout the course and achieve things they never thought possible.”
This award is a testament to the incredible work of our apprenticeship team and all our nominees who continue to shape the future of vocational education. A special mention should also go to all the College staff who were finalists for the award: Adrian McIlroy-Speed, Amanda Franklin, Sadie Criscuolo, Sonja Milovic, and Tina Pattison. College staff, apprentices, and previous apprentices accounted for wins in ten of the fourteen possible categories, an outstanding achievement. Final congratulations go to Bronwen on this well-deserved recognition: her passion and dedication to teaching really shine through!
