12 things we are looking forward to in 2021 (in no particular order)

  1. The release of the Level 5 Early Years Practitioner Apprenticeship. We are pleased to announce that the new Level 5 Early Years Lead Practitioner Standard is in the final stages of development through the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Pending approval of the assessment plan, Hawk Training will be delivering this programme from spring 2021.
  2. Roll-out of the vaccine that enables us to offer blended learning (some face-to-face time). We have missed engaging with our employers and learners face-to-face and we know this is reciprocal. We’re confident in 2021 we will be allowed back in to see our learners and we are very much looking forward to it.
  3. Continuing to support our NHS and other public services heroes with learning and development. We will continue to offer content and courses that benefit our public sector heroes throughout 2021. Our Emotional Resilience online course is still free for all key workers to access.
  4. Traineeships – We are keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to offer traineeships in the first quarter of next year. Youth unemployment continues to increase, and we need to do all we can to offer opportunities for this age group to progress into sustainable employment.
  5. Lots of vacancy placements– as the road to economic recovery begins, we look forward to supporting our employers with filling apprenticeship vacancies. We are already seeing an upswing in employers sourcing apprentices though us, using our free-to-use, advertising, sourcing and screening facility. We expect to have a bumper year of apprenticeship placements in 2021!
  6. Supporting our community and those most in need - Guaranteeing 90 days of community support in 2021. We will be nominating our preferred charities of 2021 in January to start to give back in the communities we are engaged with.
  7. More Learner Experience Forums –following the fantastic feedback received from recent forums, we will be delivering more of these to support programme development for learners and employers. These forums were designed to provide Hawk Training with an opportunity to gain feedback from our most important stakeholders.
  8. National Apprenticeship Week2021 runs from the 8th to the 14th of February. The theme this year is ‘Build the Future’ and we are already planning some exciting activities, contact us to get involved. This year will be different due to COVID but you can always guarantee with Hawk an innovative, challenging and unforgettable experience – see what we did for National Apprenticeship week 2020 
  9. Our Hawk Training values: Forward Thinking, Learning, Integrity, Teamwork and Empower – FLITE will continue to be embedded in everything we do. Read what these values mean to us with our blogs on Teamwork and Empower.
  10. Continuing to be an Ofsted Outstanding provider through working with our employers and learners and developing truly innovative provision that meets the needs of our stakeholders.
  11. With new ways of working come new challenges and with this, an opportunity to develop new and exciting short courses. Our new Managing Teams Remotely, Stepping Up to Leadership and Effective Change Management short courses are starting early in the new year. 
  12. We have developed and are launching our Stepping Up to Leadership in Early Years online self-study course. The programme is designed for those who have completed their level 3 and would like to develop their skills in stepping up to lead a team in a nursery or early years setting. This is designed to be a self-study programme for learners and can be completed in as little as a couple of days or extended to between 6 and 8 weeks. The programme is launching for entrants to start in February.


I think we can all agree that a slightly less crazy year would be appreciated by everyone! With so many exciting new things on the agenda for 2021, we are really looking forward to working with existing and new employers, learners and stakeholders.