BDA SAP New Entrant Scheme 2023

June 13, 2023

The British Drilling Association (BDA) is pleased to announce that the BDA SAP New Entrant Scheme (Formerly the Apprenticeship Scheme) 2023 has commenced. The scheme also has grant support from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).

The Scheme will consist of 22 days of classroom/site training, and minimum of 80 days on site supervised training. The end result will see apprentices holding NCON CSkills Award Level 2 Diploma in Drilling Operations – Land Drilling – Lead Driller, and all candidates will also undertake a “BDA Audit” as part of the scheme.

To be able to undertake the BDA SAP Training, the BDA is an ATO (Approved Training Organisation) with the CITB, with BDA processes and content, audited by the CITB.

The first week of training commenced in March 2023, with an Induction Day at WJ Groundwater office in Nottinghamshire. The Induction Day was presented by Debbie Griffiths of the CITB (Specialist Applied Skills Programme Officer) and the BDA’s Paul McMann, BDA Chair of Training & Education Sub-committee, and Joel Stevens, BDA General Manager.

This was then followed by a Health, Safety and Environment element, delivered by Neil Breach of Fugro and Dan Wolfe of WJ Groundwater, both members of the BDA Health & Safety Sub-committee, and lasted three-days.

The second week commenced on 12 June 2023, and was overseen by Charlie Lee Allardyce; the second week of training section covered Geology (2 days) and was presented by Paul McMann and Katherine Jones – Dunelm Geotechnical & Environmental, Simon Baxter – Soil Engineering, and Dan Griffith – TerraRoc. Following this the New Entrants will have 3 days of Drilling Applications, delivered by Charlie Lee Allardyce of Land Drilling NVQ, at Soil Engineering’s office in Leeds, which has geotechnical laboratory facilities to support the training. In addition, site visits will be made to complement the course content.

Two further weeks of training will then be undertaken, plus continual on-site supervised training ‘on-the-job’, during the course period.

The BDA would like the thank all companies for releasing candidates to attend the BDA SAP New Entrant Scheme and the CITB with delivery, monitoring and grant support.