Five plant colleagues have been hailed as outstanding by a training provider after all achieved distinction grades in a degree-level qualification.
Aidan Hodgkiss, Kyle Sykes, Matthew Clarke, Luke Pagett and Tom North were all presented with certificates by Smart Training and Recruitment following their success in the Operations Manager Level 5 Apprenticeship.
They were joined by Darren Houston, who passed the same qualification in 2024, as well as Brett Morning and Alex Taylor, who are working towards level three team leadership qualifications.
The operations manager qualification is designed to enhance participants’ strategic management skills to help them with leading teams or projects, with topics including strategic planning, operational management and talent development.
Plant General Manager Mark Barrett said: “This is an excellent achievement by everyone in this group who have shown their commitment to succeeding by putting in a lot of time outside of working hours to complete the assignments and final assessments.
“It’s great to see them all progressing in their learning and I look forward now to seeing some of them progress onto the level seven course, which is the equivalent to a master’s degree.”
Smart’s Managing Director Jan Hopkinson said: “They’ve worked really hard to achieve this quite challenging qualification. It’s something that’s not for the faint-hearted and I’d like to thank Ideal Standard for allowing us to come in and support the workforce.
“It’s an outstanding result for all of them to achieve a distinction at this level.”
Pictured at the top, left to right, are (back row) Brett Morning, Aidan Hodgkiss, Kyle Sykes, Matthew Clarke, Luke Pagett, Alex Taylor and (front row) Darren Houston and Tom North.