Proving why parents don’t need to choose between working, studying and having children
Posted on: 5 February, 2025
“The fact that I’ve been able to have a baby in the middle of doing all of this is remarkable!”
Name: Jennifer Willis
Company: VOA
For Jennifer Willis, apprenticeships run in the family. She and her husband both work at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and, having seen her husband thrive on the organisation’s apprenticeship scheme, Jennifer decided to follow suit:
“My husband started with the Level 3 apprenticeship and then he went on to do the Level 6. I really wanted to do my Master’s when I was at university, but I never had the opportunity at the time because I needed to earn money, and before my husband started working at the VOA, I wasn’t really aware of apprenticeships as an option.
Jennifer spent the first years of her career as a primary school teacher, while her husband progressed his career at the VOA. “Once he was there, we both became very aware of apprenticeships and having seen my husband do so well with his, I realised it absolutely fitted our family life.”
Jennifer decided to take a leap of faith: when a Master’s degree apprenticeship position at the VOA opened up, she applied for it, got it, and left teaching.
A job, a degree, and a baby
Jennifer has two young children, the second of which was born during her apprenticeship journey. She passionately believes that parents shouldn’t need to choose between work, studying and having children, as it is possible to combine them all with the right support:
“The fact that I’ve been able to have a baby in the middle of doing all of this is remarkable! And it’s not just an issue for women because my husband gets to be at home with the boys as well. The Valuation Office offers flexible working. We both work compressed hours, so we do five days’ work in four days and we still manage to fit in our apprenticeships around that.”
Jennifer is also appreciative of the support she’s received from UCEM as a parent:
“The children came down to the UCEM graduations last year and that was fab. UCEM were great: they gave them little goodie bags when they went in, and I was so apprehensive weeks before thinking I’m never going to get a two-year-old to sit quietly in a graduation hall but everybody was so nice.”
Jennifer has a strong relationship with her Apprenticeship Outcomes Officer, who also has two children: “I feel like she’s been on the journey as well because I took a break in learning for a year to have my youngest son. She kept in contact with me beforehand and she sent me emails while I was on my break, making sure I was OK. She’s been there for me for somebody to talk to.”
Notwithstanding the support she’s received from UCEM and the VOA, Jennifer makes no bones about the level of work involved in parenting small children while working and studying:
“Having children is hard work, obviously. It makes you tired and you definitely have those moments where you’re like, ‘oh, right, I’ve worked all day, I’ve been up since 5am, I’ve been in an office, I’ve come home, I’ve dropped them at this club, I’ve picked them up, I’ve done dinner, we’ve done bath, beds, and then you sit down at half past eight, and it’s time to catch up on my UCEM seminar’.
“It’s fun, it is a challenge, but I think you do just need to keep on top of it and keep going. My husband and I feel that it is worth it because we value our apprenticeships so much. Ultimately it’s a short period of time and I think it benefits everybody in the long run.”
One of Jennifer’s motivations for completing her apprenticeship is to model the principle of continuous learning to her children:
“By seeing us go through our apprenticeships our children will understand that as they grow up that education doesn’t just stop. It keeps going and going.”
A family-friendly learning model
Initially, Jennifer was concerned about UCEM’s 100% remote learning model. Having attended a traditional university with face-to-face learning, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to maintain the motivation to complete her studies.
Happily, those early doubts were soon dispelled:
“The way UCEM have structured it is really, really, good. It caters for everybody’s learning styles. There’s nothing worse than death by PowerPoint and it’s not like that at all. You actually find yourself wanting to log on to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and have a look at what kind of things they want you to do this week!”
Jennifer enjoys the mix of formats, such as Padlet boards, videos and seminars. And, as a busy working parent, she makes full use of the flexibility of learning outside of the lecture hall:
“One time last year, there were some seminars for the APC competencies. And I was due to go up to Scotland to see my parents, and I sat on the train and listened to them all. It’s so good that your learning can fit around you and what you’re doing.”
Apprenticeships for all
Jennifer made the leap to surveying in her late 20s, but she is a passionate advocate for career development at all ages. Around 10% of Jennifer’s colleagues at the VOA are enrolled on an apprenticeship or other career development programme, and she never misses an opportunity to encourage older people to consider apprenticeships:
“One of my family members in their 60s had a job in the warehousing industry for 30 years. He was made redundant during COVID-19 and didn’t know what to do. We talked a lot to him about it and about joining an apprenticeship scheme. We even helped him apply to the Valuation Office in the end, because age really doesn’t matter.”
Award nomination
Jennifer doesn’t “know how to describe” the feeling of being nominated for Apprentice of the Year in the Postgraduate category at the UCEM Built Environment Apprenticeship Awards: “I think I work adopting a ‘take the bull by the horns approach’, I’ve just blinkered and kept going. So the fact that the Valuation Office have noticed that I work like that is really nice – and I think it’s really nice for me to know that it’s hard work rather than status that can get you to where you need to be.”
