Upper Cut gets the highest marks for adult learning
Has Upper Cut been successful? Look no further than their Adult Learning Inspectorate report, which gives the company a Grade 1 for its work-based learning.

The report says: "Practical skills demonstrated by apprentices are good or very good and reflect commercial trends. Apprentices are well prepared for effective participation in a working salon and foundation and advanced modern apprentices develop a professional attitude towards their work. They set themselves challenging goals and work conscientiously to build on their experiences."

The inspection report goes on to state: " Apprentices are given a number of significant enhancements to their training. The communication key skill is achieved at a higher level than required by the foundation modern apprenticeship framework and the IT key skill is also taken by all apprentices. Upper Cut organises frequent additional training sessions for all apprentices by professional hair product companies. The salon enters national hairdressing competitions and encourages all apprentices to attend competitions and help with the preparation of models. This gives an excellent insight into a variety of creative hairdressing techniques. Upper Cut effectively develops its apprentices artistic skills."

Hairdressing strengths

• Outstanding retention and achievement on advanced apprenticeship programmes
• Good retention and achievement on apprenticeship programmes
• Good development of hairdressing and additional skills by apprentices
• Outstanding teaching
• Particularly good training resources
• Good enhancements to the main hairdressing training programme
• Wide range of support to enable apprentices to remain and do well in training

Leadership and Management Strengths

• Good management of training
• Particularly good staff development and progression
• Good promotion of equality and diversity to apprentices and staff
• Clear, well-used quality assurance procedures that focus on improving training
• Particularly good collection and use of a variety of feedback to improve training

Carol and John are involved in "learning raids" across the country to find out what works well in work-based training organisations. Carol is often called upon to help other work-based training organisations to increase their ALI grades and this helps to strengthen existing partnerships and forge new ones, to improve the performance of the hairdressing sector across the country.

Upper Cut receives the Edge Award
Upper Cut has been crowned England's best small employer for practical learning by a Jamie Oliver & Simon Woodroffe-backed initiative, the Edge Employer Awards.

They received a £25,000 national award after beating hundreds of organisations across the country. Upper Cut has used this investment to create additional IT facilities and help trainees develop business and management skills with the help of Office Doctors.

Carol - "we're so proud to have won an Edge Employer Award and everyone is looking forward to making the most of this opportunity. We take on people from all backgrounds and will use the money to build new IT facilities and ensure that even those who have no initial interest in business have a chance to learn. You could well be seeing the next generation of salon owners!" Why not check out the video and see how our apprentices are benefiting from our commitment to training.

Edge Chief Executive, Andy Powell, adds - "Upper Cut is a thoroughly worthy winner of the Edge Employer Awards. For a local organisation, they are involved in a huge range of programmes. We were blown away by the commitment to passing on skills and the passion of the young people learning them."

Upper Cut collected a National Winner trophy and a cheque for £25,000 during a star- studded ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. They also collected a Regional Winner trophy for the South West.

Click here for a short video of the awards ceremony.