1st November 2022
Every year around 60% of St Brendan’s students in Year 13 head off to university after completing their A-levels and Level 3 BTECs. The vast majority of the others take a gap year to travel or gain work experience, or begin an apprenticeship.
Apprenticeships have proved to be a very popular route with this year’s A-level Accounting cohort with almost half of the class securing positions with top companies such as Grant Thornton, Deloitte, Old Mill, Ministry of Defence, Haines Watts and Verinder Powell Associates.
It was great to hear from Haines Watts recently about the four apprentices that joined them this September as part of a new scheme that they have set up with St Brendan’s. Kieran, Amaya, Lauren and Sohaib are all working at the company’s Bristol office and the coming three years will see them spending time in each of SME specialist’s different accounting departments and reaching Level 7 of their Accounting and Taxation Professional Apprenticeship.
Helping with the recruitment process was qualified accountant Sophia Wallace, who herself joined Haines Watts from St Brendan's four years ago. Sophie told us "It's great to be involved with helping young and enthusiastic accountants find an alternative route into the workplace. Working in our accounts and audit, tax and outsourced accounting departments, they’ll receive a broad range of experiences and be able to specialise or generalise in the future.”
Matthew Bracher, Managing Director at Haines Watts Bristol, added "We have an established trainee programme here, as well as manager and partner level development programmes, which works well for us as a business and is a key part of facilitating growth in the SME market, as well as supporting our longer-term ambitions. I want to welcome all our new starts and we look forward to seeing their progress."
Marian Curran, Principal at St Brendan's Sixth Form College, said: "There are many routes into the workplace and apprenticeships offer a feasible and often underappreciated means by which to enhance your qualifications and at the same time start a new career. We wish Kieran, Amaya, Lauren and Sohaib all the best for the next stage in their professional lives and we look forward to working further with Haines Watts in the future."
