Bethany Clayton – Morgan Advanced Materials

Beth at 16 was a typical teenager, coming to the end of her school life at Nunnery Wood with no idea what to do next. Beth achieved fantastic GCSE results: 9 x As, 2 x Bs and a C Grade, so could have done anything she wanted. Much to her Mum’s dismay, she knew she didn’t want to do A levels, go to University and get lots of debt, especially when she had no idea what she would study.

Beth was passionate about horses so decided to do something she enjoyed and enrolled on a full-time Level 3 BTEC college course in Horse management. Beth enjoyed the course but realised there was no real future job prospects for her so
having spoken with a family member who was in The Navy, decided to try this, but, she needed A levels in Maths and Science to do what she wanted. Her next step was to enrol at the 6th Form for A levels where she started Maths, Accounts and Biology.

Beth soon realised that the jump from GCSEs to A levels was huge, especially having left school over 12 months ago, so 4 months in, Beth decided that A levels were not for her so she left the 6th Form and was back to square one, still unsure about what career path to follow.

After spending 2 months at home, signing on for Jobseekers Allowance and her mom telling her to ‘go out and get a job’ Beth came across Apprenticeships and after much thought and research, realised she enjoyed messing about with her car and, as her boyfriend at the time was doing an engineering apprenticeship, this led her to apply online to Worcester Group Training for an Apprenticeship.

Beth has never looked back, her first year was spent in the engineering workshop full time completing a BTEC Level 3 in Mechanical Engineering which led to HNC Level 4 and now Beth is just finishing her HND Level 5 in Engineering.

Beth works at Morgan Advanced Ceramics as a Process Engineer which means she implements solutions for engineering problems. Rather than making things she is more office based, although she stresses that the ‘hands on’ engineering is still a big part of what she enjoys and still has the opportunity to do.

Beth’s next step? Well a Degree in Engineering of course. It may have taken Beth a while to get there but she has found her Apprenticeship challenging, rewarding and hard work at times, but to end up with a Degree would be the icing on the cake for Beth and no student debt has to be a winner.

Her mom is very proud of her, especially as Beth has won Worcestershire’s Apprentice of the Year 2018 and has been nominated for numerous other awards including the national SEMTA Awards.