ACT learner gains experience at award winning coffee shop

Jack Morris, 17 and from Cardiff, is currently on a work experience placement at The Orchard – winner of the coffee shops category of the Echo Food & Drink Awards 2015.

Jack is enrolled on a Hospitality and Catering Traineeship programme at ACT Training, Wales’ leading training provider. He is gaining work-based training in an industry that he passionate about and is using a Traineeship as a stepping stone to an Apprenticeship.

Grady Atkins, ACT’s Hospitality and Catering Curriculum Co-ordinator, said: “Jack is really having a valuable experience being on placement at the award winning coffee shop, The Orchard. His skill level has really improved and he now knows what an important part of the team he is, as he was asked to increase his hours recently from two days a week to four. He also had some paid hours last Saturday as they were very busy” 

The Orchard coffee shop in Radyr is well known for its friendly staff and homemade, hearty lunches, cakes and scones which Jack has been making on a daily basis. The Orchards serves organic fair-trade coffee, specialty loose leaf teas and homemade creative nutritious lunches from chunky ham hock pie, to yellow rice salad.

ACT Training has teamed up with employers across Wales to deliver the scheme after it was introduced in August 2013 to support younger learners in developing workplace relevant skills, but the company is finding that a lot of businesses are still missing out on the benefits traineeships can bring to their own operations, largely down to a lack of awareness about the traineeship scheme.

Andrew Cooksley, Managing Director at ACT Training, said: “The introduction of the traineeship brought with it the opportunity for scores of young people to prepare themselves for their future careers, and more importantly create a solid and considered base on which to build their working life moving forward.

“In turn employers and businesses are increasingly being empowered to grow the leaders of the future without the need to start from scratch, and the traineeship will undoubtedly prove particularly pertinent in ensuring that youth unemployment continues on its downward trend at a faster rate in Wales than anywhere else in the UK.”