William Thomas graduated from Year 11 at UTC Leeds in summer 2019 and progressed straight into a high quality apprenticeship with Leeds-based Bright Screw. The UTC helped to secure William’s apprenticeship in partnership with Appris:
“The experience I had at the UTC was immensely helpful with my interviews. When I had my interview with Bright Screw, I brought in some of the turned parts I’d made on the machines here, which apparently no one else had done. I’m not sure how far I’d have got if I hadn’t had the experience from here and hadn’t had the evidence I could show.”
Bright Screw manufactures and stocks machine parts. William started his apprenticeship on Monday 22nd August and is enjoying it. “It’s good. It’s good fun at the moment, difficult standing up all the time. They’re all really nice there. There are a lot of apprentices.”
William first started to think about engineering when he started doing product design.
“They stopped doing product design at my old school so I decided I wanted to take the path of engineering so I took the leap of faith, came here, and it’s paid off.
“I’ve got to do what I wanted to do, got to learn things I never thought I’d learn, using the machines.
“You get to try all sorts of engineering here, you get the machine side but you also get civil engineering. You get to learn the sort of stuff you would in industry and the different types of industry. I did a work experience at MPM Bradford, which does fibreglass moulding.”
William was happy with his results from the UTC:
“My results are good. I did alright in a lot of them. I’m particularly pleased with product design where I got an 8 and biology, where I got a 7 in that.
“I’m coming into my own, I’ve got this apprenticeship now and I’m understanding what I like more.”
