Bright Horizons joins The 5% Club as it continues its apprenticeship scheme commitment

Bright Horizons, the nursery and back-up care provider, has joined The 5% Club, an industry led initiative focused on accelerating the recruitment of apprentices, graduates, and sponsored students.

The 5% Club is a movement of more than 500 employers providing ‘earn and learn’ opportunities to develop the skills and talents people need to become more employable and create meaningful careers. Companies joining The 5% Club commit to raising the number of apprentices, sponsored students, and graduates on formal programmes to 5% of their total workforce within five years.

Members are also asked to publicly report their progress in their Annual Report. Existing members range from SMEs to FTSE-listed companies and cover a number of diverse industries, from engineering through to the legal sector.

Janine Leightley, Director of Human Resources at Bright Horizons, said: “The importance of the first five years of a child's life should never be underestimated. We recognise and respect the significance of our role in these formative years and encourage our team of professionals to constantly challenge and develop their learning to ensure the children in our care are always given the best opportunities to develop their own love of learning.”

Janine added: “Helping our practitioners learn and develop in their careers is integral to Bright Horizons. Apprenticeships can be an important way of achieving this, and to help those who are already more established to advance in their careers. We’re pleased to join The 5% Club and proud of the fact that 5.9% of our workforce is enrolled in an apprenticeship scheme. We have over 260 of our people due to qualify this year of which 95% of the apprentices are Early Years apprentices.”

Amber Godins, Third in Charge at a Bright Horizons nursery in London: “I completed my Apprenticeship about 3 years ago, shortly after I became a Room Leader and again shortly after became Third in Charge. The apprenticeship really helped me see childcare with a different perspective. The knowledge gained helped me deal with daily queries with confidence. The workload was intense but with support from my tutor I was able to create a schedule that helped me complete all modules to a good standard. The fact that I was able to complete the apprenticeship, gave me confidence to pursue further training.”

Bright Horizons has partnerships with high quality training providers who deliver learning both online and face to face. There are qualifications available from Level 2 (equivalent to school level GCSE) to Level 7 (Master’s Degree level).Over the past few years, more than 600 Bright Horizons apprentices have successfully gained the qualifications and knowledge that has enabled them to thrive in their careers and make a positive impact in a variety of functions across the business. 

Gill Cronin, Director of Operations of The 5% Club said, “We’re delighted to welcome Bright Horizons into membership. The 5% Club provides a fantastic network of HR professionals, sharing and learning from each other.  All our members share an ethos of creating a skilled workforce through ‘earn and learn’ development programmes, helping people develop meaningful career paths.”

For more information on apprenticeships available at Bright Horizons then please visit jobs.brighthorizons.co.uk/apprenticeships.