PREPARE Coach
🎯 PREPARE Coach
PREPARE Coach helps you get ready for your progress reviews by encouraging reflection, measuring confidence and readiness, reviewing your apprenticeship progress, and helping you identify key discussion points before meeting with your Development Coach.
📌 What you’ll learn
In this guide, you’ll learn how to access PREPARE Coach, complete a preparation session, review your outputs, and use the information to get the most from your progress reviews.
🎥 Watch the walkthrough
1️⃣ Access the coaching menu
Navigate to the Coaching menu or open the Coaching Dashboard.
From the dashboard, select PREPARE to begin preparing for your next progress review.
🎯 PREPARE Coach is designed to help you arrive at your review feeling informed, confident, and ready to have meaningful discussions.
2️⃣ Start a new session
Click Start New Session to begin a new coaching conversation.
PREPARE Coach will then guide you through a structured reflection process designed to help you think about your apprenticeship progress.
3️⃣ Review current affairs
At the beginning of the session, you’ll see the City Skills Current Affairs Engine.
This contains recent news articles and industry updates relevant to your apprenticeship area.
- Select an article
- Read the content
- Think about your opinions and observations
- Be prepared to discuss it during your review
💡 Current affairs discussions help develop wider industry awareness and professional thinking.
4️⃣ Work through the coaching questions
PREPARE Coach will guide you through a series of reflective questions about your apprenticeship journey.
Typical questions may include:
- How are you feeling about your upcoming review?
- How are you progressing with your Off-the-Job hours?
- What has been your biggest achievement since your last review?
- How confident are you feeling at the moment?
- What challenges have you experienced?
- What support might you need?
✅ Answer as honestly and openly as possible. The more genuine your responses, the more valuable the outputs will be.
5️⃣ Conclude the session
Once you have completed all questions, click:
📝 Conclude and Get Output
Alternatively, you can provide a final closing comment and press Enter to complete the session.
PREPARE Coach will then analyse your responses and generate a personalised summary.
6️⃣ Review your outputs
At the end of the session, PREPARE Coach generates a summary of your discussion.
This may include:
- Confidence scores
- Readiness scores
- Key achievements
- Areas for development
- Discussion points for your review
- Suggested next actions
📄 You can download a PDF copy of the session summary or revisit it later from your Coaching Plans area.
7️⃣ Access previous coaching plans
All completed PREPARE Coach sessions are stored within your Coaching Plans section.
This allows you to:
- Review previous coaching conversations
- Track your development over time
- Monitor changes in confidence and readiness
- Revisit actions and commitments
🚀 Why use PREPARE Coach?
PREPARE Coach helps you arrive at your reviews feeling organised and prepared.
By completing sessions regularly, you can:
- Reflect on your progress
- Identify achievements and challenges
- Build confidence
- Improve review discussions
- Take ownership of your development
- Prepare effectively for gateway and EPA
💡 Top tip: Complete a PREPARE Coach session before every progress review. This will help you identify discussion points, reflect on achievements, and make the most of the time with your Development Coach.
🙋 Need help?
If you experience any issues with PREPARE Coach, visit the My Portfolio Wiki, raise a support ticket, or contact your Development Coach through your Student Dashboard.
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