Dorset County Council

Dorset

Katie Lowe

Manager

Kelly Greening’s been mad about computers since she was given her first one at the age of nine – and now she’s one of the star performers in the IT Services department of Dorset County Council.

She attributes at least part of her success to the Advanced Apprenticeship for IT Practitioners she’s been doing at the council with support from assessors at Yeovil College.

“I didn’t want to go to university because it would have meant leaving home and getting into debt,” she says. “I liked the idea of learning and earning at the same time.

“I thought a degree in IT would be out of date quite quickly, so working with IT seemed a better idea to me.”

Katie Lowe, her manager at the council, is glad Kelly made that choice.

“She’s been great and is highly valued,” says Katie. “She is very productive and fits into all the teams well.

“Even though she was only in each team for two to three months, she established herself very quickly and picked things up. She’s been a very valuable asset.”

Katie says the council is a great believer in apprenticeships and takes in a lot of business and administration apprentices, in addition to the IT apprentices.

“Apprenticeships keep the younger element of people coming through and offer young people from Dorset an opportunity to work in our county and develop their skills and knowledge,” she says.

“The apprentices are very IT-literate and show a lot of enthusiasm. They bring in that fresh way of thinking.

Kelly is also studying an Open University taster course in Maths with the intention of starting a four-year BSc Honours ICT course in so she can stay at home, study and earn a wage at the same time.

“Yeovil have been very good,” adds Kelly. “I had a good assessor and a good co-ordinator and I could contact them at any time I wanted to.”

Yeovil College