Blog from Our Drupal Apprentices

Today we started the first Drupal pre-apprenticeship programme. The idea of the course is to find school leavers with an interest in and aptitude to coding/web development and help a young person get their foot on the ladder to employment. This intensive two week course will cover the basics of using Drupal, HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript. Currently four organisations have committed to taking on an Apprentice, so we will prepare this group of school leavers and get them ready to go out to an interview.

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Over the next two weeks they will be building their websites and blogging about their experiences, very early days yet; mostly a quiet, nervous start, but I expect that will change once they get used to their new environment and tutors and start to relax!

Do you or do you know anyone that wants to help a young person get their foot on the ladder to employment? If you are interested in details of our Apprenticeship programme contact sheena@happy.co.uk or call Sheena on 020 7375 7300.

Here’s a selection of their comments at the end of day one…

“The focus of today was downloading the CMS- Drupal. It was a complex process made relatively easy by the step by step stages Pat, our teacher, showed us.

We discussed common Jargon frequently used in the work place but also looked at terms that we were familiar with yet only knew the acronyms to.”

“Today was a very positive learning curve.

By starting off with an introduction to the course it was clear what our objectives for the week were. We would be expected to not only learn about Drupal but to increase our knowledge of ICT jargon, the internet itself and other web developing skills such as coding.

Moving on from the introduction we then created a sub domain in order to install Drupal. We then installed Drupal and started to play around with the site to get a feel for it.”

“Today has been a great day and happy computers is a great company which has taught me lots of different things. e,g. how to create a website using drupal, how to navigate around the website in order to create my own article and pages like my about me page. although i have created the basics for my page there are still a few things i have to learn like posting images but all around this has been a great experience and could help me in the near future.”

“To be perfectly honest the first day of anything isn’t always my best day, especially on a Monday. well up at the crack of dawn, getting reminded why i hate trains during the morning rush, nervous about meeting everyone but it was all alright. When i got to happy Computers i was advised where to go with no issues and when i met the staff i found they were very positive and relaxing to be around, defiantly cheered me up and made the experience go a lot smoother.”

Related blogs

Great Work by our Young Drupal Apprentices– Read about some of our apprentice’s achievements in this short blog.
Our Drupal Apprentices in Leeds– Meet the young people who joined our apprenticeship scheme in Leeds.
Update on our Drupal Apprentices– More about how our apprentices got on and what they had to say about the scheme.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Henry Stewart

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. “He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business,” explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.