CASE STUDY CASE STUDY CHLOE WARRINER 19,

Collinge & Co, Liverpool

“At school I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I couldn’t see myself going to university, so I left when I was 15 and everyone was like, ‘You’re making the worst mistake ever’. All the usual stuff. I came to an open day at Collinge & Co to have a look around and I loved it.

“Quite a few of my friends would probably have done better if they’d left school too, but now they’re finishing degrees because they were pushed through, and they’re never going to use those degrees because they don’t want to do those jobs. That’s why you end up with so many people coming out of university with all these degrees and then working jobs they don’t want to be in.

“Starting my apprenticeship was quite scary. I went into it blind because I’d never done anything like it before. I was used to sitting in a classroom all day. I remember I was horrified because my first shift was 9am to 6pm and I was like, ‘I’m used to finishing school at 2.30pm!’ You’re definitely not pushed to take that jump, but it’s so worth it when you do.” continue training at Level 3 or go straight out on to the floor.

“The pay has been a bit of a struggle and for a while I was on Universal Credit because I had rent and bills to pay and I’d spent all my savings during lockdown. So it was a massive challenge and it’s physically knackering too – especially in the first year. I came home exhausted most days!”

“I’m not sure whether I’m going to do Level 3. We do a lot of training with our product supplier and to be honest I can’t really afford to stay on an apprenticeship wage for another year. I’ve spoken to my manager about it and I’ll probably go down the route of getting Level 2 done then working on the floor, supplemented by separate training courses in extensions and so on.”

“I’ve loved the hairdressing side of my apprenticeship but to be able to sustain myself financially I had to have a pub job at the same time. So I was working two jobs, one finishing late and the other starting early, often going straight from one to the other. I did that for about a year and half… I was knackered!”

Perhaps as a result of the lack of promotion of apprenticeships in schools, people are often unprepared for the transition from classroom to the salon floor; not enough is being done to inform and prepare students for the change.

“I was working as a Saturday girl at my salon for two years before I started my apprenticeship, so I knew how they worked. I knew I’d be rinsing colours before I could start applying them. But if I hadn’t had that Saturday job, I think I’d have gone into an apprenticeship believing I’d be cutting someone’s hair right away. There is just nothing out there that tells you what to expect.”