apprentice-first-week

Apprentice First Week Skill

"Watch me and you'll pick it up" is how apprentices stay useless for a year —

and how thumbs get lost in week one. A first week that works is planned like a

job: safety rules stated as absolutes before any tool moves, one teachable

task-block per day with the why attached, an explicit list of what they may

do unsupervised (short) versus with eyes on them (everything else), and a

Friday conversation that tells both sides the truth. The payoff is selfish and

immediate: an apprentice who can safely prep, fetch, and finish doubles a

one-person business by Friday afternoon.

What This Skill Produces

• A day-by-day first week: one skill-block per day (demonstrate → assist

→ attempt supervised), plus the standing jobs that make them useful between

lessons

• The safety brief, written to be said aloud on Monday at 7:55: the

non-negotiables, what to do when unsure, and the "stop means stop" rule

• The touch list: may-do-unsupervised / may-do-watched / not-yet — updated

Friday

• The Friday review script: what went well, what to fix, one goal for

week two — both directions (the apprentice reviews the teaching too)

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• The trade, and the actual jobs booked for that week (the plan teaches from

real work, not exercises)

• The apprentice: age, experience (school-leaver? career-changer?), formal

scheme requirements if enrolled (college days, logbooks — flag, don't

invent scheme rules)

• The user's honest pain: what they most need taken off their hands
• Site realities: one-van solo work vs a site with other trades

Framework

1. Monday is safety and setup, taught as identity. The brief: PPE

always · the tools they must not touch yet, by name · "if unsure, stop

and ask — asking is the job" · where the first-aid kit and shutoffs are ·

the one-sentence rule: nothing we do today is worth a finger. Then teach

the setup/protection/cleanup routine — it's the frame of every day and

they can own it by Wednesday.

1. One block per day, taught in three passes. Demonstrate (they watch,

you narrate the why) → assist (they do the low-risk half) → attempt (they

do it watched, you resist grabbing the tool back — the hardest part of

teaching). Pick blocks from the week's real jobs, easiest-reversible

first.

1. Standing jobs make the dead time useful. Between lessons: material

prep, protection, tidy-as-you-go, van stock check, watching-with-

questions. An apprentice never stands empty-handed wondering; the list is

on paper.

1. The touch list is the contract. Short unsupervised list that grows

every Friday — visible progress is the retention tool for young workers.

Growth is earned by demonstrated care, not by days served.

1. Friday review, both directions. Three questions each way: what did

you do this week you couldn't Monday? · what did I explain badly? · one

goal for next week. Ten minutes, and it's the difference between an

apprentice and a decade of laborers who quit in month two.

Output Format

## Monday 7:55 safety brief (say this aloud)
[The non-negotiables, in speakable lines]

## The week
| Day | Skill block (demo → assist → attempt) | From which real job | Standing jobs |

## Touch list v1 (revisit Friday)
Unsupervised: … · Watched: … · Not yet (and why): …

## Friday review script
[Three questions each direction · week-two goal · touch-list updates]

## Scheme admin flags
[College days, logbook, ratios — verify with the scheme, not asserted here]

Quality Checks

• [ ] Safety brief is speakable in under 5 minutes and contains the

stop-and-ask rule verbatim

• [ ] Every skill block comes from that week's actual booked work
• [ ] The unsupervised list is genuinely short on day one and has a named

growth path

• [ ] The review runs both directions — the teaching gets reviewed too
• [ ] Formal scheme requirements are flagged for verification, never invented

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not plan a week of fetching — usefulness without teaching is how

apprentices quit; teaching without standing jobs is how the business

loses a week

• [ ] Do not soften safety rules to seem friendly on day one — absolutes on

Monday, warmth all week

• [ ] Do not let "faster to do it myself" win the attempt pass — say the

quiet math out loud: slower Tuesday buys a faster month

• [ ] Do not write scheme/legal requirements (hours, ratios, wages) as facts

— flag and verify

Related

[[onboarding-plan]] — the office cousin; [[teach-the-game]] shares the

demonstrate-then-play bones; [[sop-writer]] when a routine deserves writing

down for every future hire.