Chamber of commerce is in Ofsted's good books

The chamber’s training service has been officially rated as ‘Good’ by national regulatory service Ofsted.

Inspectors visited NECC at the end of last year observing teaching, learning and assessment, and taking feedback from students and employers themselves into account.

The chamber was one of the first training providers in the UK to be inspected under the new Ofsted framework, launched in September, where good providers must demonstrate their effectiveness in two days or face a lengthier inspection.

Suzanne Slater is regional manager for the chamber’s business and professional sector and works with a number of North East companies are looking to increase IT skills.

“We are often asked to go into a business and upskill staff in essential IT skills such as using email, the Internet and software products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” she said.

“We’re also seeing more demand for IT security training as well as in social media and higher level IT qualifications such as programming and networking”

Ofsted inspector Paul Cocker commended the chamber on the quality of its training courses.

“The North East Chamber of Commerce’s training team has been relentless in their focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning, leading to the large majority of apprentices completing their programme within the planned timescales,” he said.

“Apprentices receive well-planned off-the-job learning linked to their apprenticeship, which enhances their skills and is suitably applied in the workplace, meeting the apprentices’ and employers’ specific needs.”

Apprenticeships can last from one to five years and,are available across a wide range of industry sectors including: IT Professional/IT User; social media; business administration; ILM Management; accountancy; engineering; construction; customer service; warehousing, and more.

For more information see the chamber’s apprenticeship website www.necc.co.uk/training