Corndel Avis 5

I recently contacted a training provider to enquire about joining one of their development programmes as an individual learner. Although I understand that each provider has its own operating model, my overall experience was disappointing.
While my employer’s head office is based in another part of the UK, I personally live and work remotely in England. Because Apprenticeship Levy eligibility depends on where the learner is based rather than where the organisation is registered, I initially expected that this would make participation possible.
I also explained that my previous employer had successfully enrolled individual staff members on this provider’s programmes for several years. This clearly demonstrated that the provider had, in the past, accepted individual learners without requiring them to join a large cohort.
However, after waiting a considerable amount of time for replies at every stage of the conversation, I was eventually informed that the provider prefers to deliver programmes to sector‑based cohorts of around 20 learners. As a result, I was advised to explore “alternative options,” with no effort to discuss my circumstances or consider any flexibility. The slow response times made the eventual dismissive answer even more disappointing.
The explanation felt inconsistent with the provider’s previous willingness to support individual learners, and no rationale was provided for this change. The communication overall came across as rigid and unhelpful rather than constructive, transparent, or learner‑focused.
While I appreciate that organisations can evolve their delivery models, the lack of clarity, consistency, and timely communication left a poor impression. Based on this experience, I would advise individual learners or smaller charities to be aware that this provider may not offer flexibility unless they can join a full, sector‑matched cohort.

I attended a teams based course with Charlotte and Heather. It felt like this was the first time they had hosted a course. Follow along documents not able to access, lots of messing around with 'technical issues.' They kept saying 'don't worry if you didn't get that we will share the recording' when people asked for the recording they just ignored requests and turned off the chat, so completely ignoring everyone on the course. They promised but couldn't deliver, rather than just stating they where unable to share the recording they chose to ignore everyone. Very unprofessional.

Currently undertaking a level 4 Project Management apprenticeship with Corndel. I don't feel I am learning anything. Lots of reading and no actual teaching. Had one workshop so far (we get 4 in total) and one of the activities was to send an email... The Aptem website is not user-friendly. I wish I had never signed up.

Really disappointed by the quality of the teaching, the system they use called aptem is also really outdated - my course just wasn’t fun and they didn’t care about feedback

Very closed company culture. I don’t believe it’s the company, but they are not checking and monitoring their decision-making employees enough. They admirably, pride themselves on allowing and encouraging autonomy. However, this allows too much freedom for those who consciously or unconsciously make discriminatory decisions and practice those behaviours. Some individuals blatantly state that if your face or personality don’t fit their view of the ‘Corndelian’ culture and mould, they will lie and manipulate to get rid, very quickly. I have yet to see how fair their processes are, but I am not holding my breath. They definitely don’t want you to be an authentic Black person. If you are a transparent, open, ‘authentic’ person, whatever your background, forget it. It’s not worth the heartache or headache. Lots more openings for you out there. Lots more apprenticeship providers out there.