Ajay Gohil, Accounts Senior at Wenn Townsend, recently qualified as an ACA chartered accountant via Reed Business School’s apprenticeship scheme. We spoke to him to find out about his training journey.
After completing A-Levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry, Ajay went on to study Physics at university. However, upon graduating, he decided to move into accountancy, and obtained a junior role at a firm where he could earn and start working towards his ACA qualification at the same time.
Ajay hadn’t really considered the apprenticeship route into accountancy before, but once he’d passed his certificate level papers, he was encouraged to join that pathway for the final two levels, with Reed Business School as the firm’s chosen training provider. Immediately he connected with the structure and pace of the programme and began to excel.
“The classroom environment at Reed Business School really suited me – being able to ask questions and get support on things I was struggling with. The feedback and marking of the mock exams also helped influence my revision, so I knew what areas I needed to focus on in the run up to each paper.”
When Ajay decided to move firm part-way through his studies, he asked his new employer whether he could continue with his apprenticeship with Reed, and they were very responsive to the idea – so much so that’s it’s standard practice for all their trainee accountants now!
In his current role, Ajay gets exposure to a lot of different areas of accountancy, and this has helped him get a broad understanding of the profession, while his softer business skills and behaviours also developed in line with the Skills & Behaviours element of the apprenticeship training.
“I was quite lucky to be able to have the role I did and the support of my firm to assist in my development, they’ve been fantastic throughout, and now I hope to be able to use my experience to guide and mentor the new apprentices my firm takes on.”
When it comes to support from Reed, Ajay believes the collaborative teaching approach we use for the Advanced Level papers is second to none:
“Talking openly with classmates and tutors about how to prepare for these exams was really useful. Reed facilitated these discussions and brought us all together in a professional and focused way, where we all felt supported and encouraged. I don’t think I would have passed the exams if it wasn’t for this.”
Now he’s fully qualified, Ajay admits that although his work/life/study balance was a little tricky to manage in the final year of his training, he’s very glad of the sacrifices he made to pass all his exams, He is now looking forward to working towards a new set of goals in relation to his career progression.
and finally a word from Ajay’s manager
“We choose Reed Business School as our preferred training provider due to the school consistently achieving pass rates higher than the national average and the excellent support the RBS team provide to the students. Our trainees largely stay at the manor whilst completing their courses, enabling them to study with their peers whilst benefiting from the expertise of the tutors in an environment away from the day to day responsibilities of work and home life. Our students completing their studies on the apprenticeship scheme at Reed also benefit from the support of an RBS learning coach and as a result our students are consistently qualifying as Chartered Accountants at Reed Business School. “
Jane Bull, FCA, Director of Accounting, Wenn Townsend