Ben Hirst
Study Type: Adult and Community
Study Location: The Roundhouse
Subject Studied: Teacher Training, Coaching and Mentoring
Cert Ed helps carpentry and joinery assessor Ben secure teaching role
Derby College Group carpentry and joinery teacher Ben Hirst gets a great deal of job satisfaction from his role.
A former carpentry apprentice himself, he teaches students on level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships and is proud of his courses’ success rate.
After spending 12 years as a work-based assessor, Ben did his Cert Ed qualification with DCG, and started his teaching job at the Hudson Building two-and-a-half years ago.
He said: “It’s good to see my students evolve from being 16-year-old school leavers who know very little into young tradespeople who’ve passed their End Point Assessments.
“In the time I’ve been teaching, 95% of the apprentices have successfully come through their EPA and of those 60% have done so with distinctions. It’s results like these that keep me striding on.”
Ben went straight into his own apprenticeship with a local firm after GCSEs but discovered his desire to teach while serving as an instructor in the army cadets.
He added: “I didn’t intend to be an assessor for quite so long – my aim was to be a teacher – but the opportunities didn’t come along so I went back on the tools for a while.
“As soon as I saw my current role was available, I was champing at the bit to start it. Taking the Cert Ed as a student with Derby College was an emotional roller coaster.
“Some of it I really enjoyed – it was excellent – but other parts took me way out of my comfort zone. I struggled with the Harvard Referencing.
“I left school at 16 so that level of academic of writing was a big jump for me. I did it though.”
As a teacher, Ben has found his industry experience to be essential.
He said: “ I don’t just go off the job sheet. I come up with real life scenarios, showing students examples of what can go wrong and how to go about fixing a problem. I show them some of the tricks of the trade. “
As soon as I saw my current role was available, I was champing at the bit to start it. Taking the Cert Ed as a student with Derby College was an emotional roller coaster. Some of it I really enjoyed – it was excellent – but other parts took me way out of my comfort zone. I struggled with the Harvard Referencing. I left school at 16 so that level of academic of writing was a big jump for me. I did it though.