Emmaus Support staff are fundamental to the smooth running of all school services across our community of Emmaus schools
I came to Emmaus from quite a different world. After my GCSEs I went straight into property management: first a family business managing serviced office space, then three years in residential lettings in Manchester city centre, then leasehold. About five years in property altogether. It was varied work, but eventually I wanted something else. I had always been the person people called when the internet stopped working or a computer needed sorting. It just felt natural. I had been on QA’s records since school, and when an email came through about apprenticeship opportunities I started paying attention.
The Emmaus role stood out. Working across a cluster of schools rather than being stuck in one place, managing your own diary, out on the road, working with everyone from teachers and teaching assistants to head teachers and business managers. That variety appealed to me. I had spent years in corporate offices and I was ready for something different.
What I did not fully anticipate was just how much support I would get from day one. My first six to eight months were spent working alongside a senior technician, Luke, now our Cluster IT Manager, who taught me the day-to-day realities of running IT across a secondary school. He was generous with his time and genuinely patient about explaining things rather than just showing me what to do and moving on. That kind of hands-on mentoring is something you cannot get from theory alone, and it gave me a solid foundation. Alongside that, we work closely with cloud consultants, and whenever something sits outside my current knowledge, they take the time to walk me through it properly. The team genuinely wants you to understand, not just to get the job done.
The apprenticeship structure itself has been one of the biggest surprises. I spend about 80% of my time on practical work and 20% on dedicated study, and that protected time to learn makes a real difference. It keeps you honest. The training through QA covers knowledge, skills and behaviours, not just the technical fundamentals, so you come away with a proper grounding in how an organisation like Emmaus actually functions, its policies, its values, the wider context of the work. It forces you to look up from the helpdesk queue and understand the bigger picture. I am working towards a Level 3 ICT Azure Cloud Support Specialist qualification, and having a recognised credential to show for it matters.
What I notice most, working across a cluster of schools, is the weight of responsibility. Pupils rely on connected systems for their learning every day. If something fails, lessons are affected. That keeps you focused. It also means you end up being more present than you might expect: helping a pupil find their way round a new laptop, noticing when someone seems unsettled and pointing them towards the right support. The ethos of the schools comes through in small moments like that, and it shapes how you approach the job.
Emmaus has a clear pathway mapped out from apprentice through to IT manager. I can see exactly where I am on it and where it leads. After my exam in May I will move into a mobile engineer role, with further development beyond that already set out. Knowing that the organisation is genuinely invested in where you end up, not just in what you can do for them right now, changes how you feel about the work.
If someone asked me whether to consider an apprenticeship here, I would say yes without hesitating. The environment is warm, the team is good, the work is varied, and the support is real. Every day is different, and you grow faster than you expect.