Your role as trainer

When your agency sponsors an apprentice, Skilled Trades Ontario expects it to designate someone qualified to train and assess that apprentice against the DSW Apprenticeship Training Standard. In many agencies that person is the apprentice's supervisor. Your agency may call you a coach, supervisor or manager. On this site we say trainer. If you watch the work and sign the logbook, this page is for you.

What the role is

You are the person who watches the work and decides when it is competent. The apprentice's Training Standard logbook lists the skill sets they must demonstrate. You observe them doing that work, you give feedback, and when you are satisfied they can do it reliably, you sign the relevant section. Your signatures, together with the apprentice's hours and course completions, are what the apprenticeship is built from.

What it asks of you

• Regular time with the apprentice. Try a short, scheduled check-in every month rather than one long review a year.
• Watching the work, in more than one situation, rather than asking about it.
• Arranging variety. If the apprentice's usual shifts do not give them the chance to demonstrate a skill set, you arrange time in another program or with another team.
• Honest sign-off. Signing when they are ready, and saying plainly what is missing when they are not.
• Knowing the Training Standard. Read it before the first check-in, so you know what you are looking for.

What the role is not

You are not responsible for the apprentice's college courses, their registration with Skilled Trades Ontario, or their fees. Those sit with the apprentice, the college coordinator and whoever in your agency handles sponsorship. Your job is the on-the-job half, confirm skills are completed and sign off on the log book.