Record, for every training activity, the date, start and finish times, hours, what was taught, which part of the apprenticeship standard it supports, who delivered it, what evidence exists and who signed it off. A small trades firm keeps it current with a ten-minute entry every Friday, checked against the provider's records each month.
Which hours count, and how many are required, depends on the apprenticeship scheme and on when the apprentice started, so the log below is built to answer either of the two common shapes of rule. Your training provider or programme sponsor decides what applies to you, and none of this is legal advice. What follows is the employer's side of the paperwork: the record you keep alongside the provider's, so the two can be compared before anyone else compares them for you.
Two shapes of hours rule, and a log that fits both
The first shape sets a minimum amount of training away from the apprentice's normal duties, taken in paid working hours. In the official guidance I read (an August 2026 edition for one such scheme), apprentices who started up to 31 July 2025 needed at least 20% of their normal working hours, capped at 30 hours a week for funding purposes. That is about 6 hours a week, or 278 hours over 12 months once statutory leave is taken out. In that scheme, for starts from 1 August 2025, each apprenticeship standard publishes a minimum number of hours instead, shown on the standard's front page. Evidenced prior learning can reduce the figure, but not below a floor of 187 hours.
The second shape counts hours of supervised work plus separate instruction. In the time-based route of the hours-based system I checked, as set out in its published programme standards, an apprentice completes at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning over the whole term, not each year, set out in a work process schedule that shows roughly how much time goes to each major process. Related instruction of 144 hours a year is recommended, not required, and competency-based and hybrid routes also exist.
Both shapes need the same things from an employer's log: dates and times, hours, what was learnt, evidence and a sign-off. In the first scheme the guidance says all delivery evidence must be quantifiable as a number of hours, that times matter because an auditor needs to know whether training happened in normal working hours, and that electronic signatures are acceptable if they are secure and unaltered. The provider is ultimately responsible for the evidence, but the employer's apprenticeship agreement commits it to release the apprentice for the specified hours. That is why you keep your own record: you can show the release happened, and you can spot a gap long before a review does.
What counts as off-the-job training: eleven kitchen-fitting cases
The first scheme's guidance gives four tests. The activity must teach new knowledge, skills or behaviours; be directly relevant to the apprenticeship standard; take place in the apprentice's normal working hours, meaning the hours they would normally be paid for, excluding overtime; and not be on the list of ineligible activities, which includes initial assessment and onboarding, standalone English and maths qualifications, progress reviews, examinations, generic company induction and, generally, travel. Eleven cases from a kitchen-fitting firm show how those tests work in the moment:
| Activity | Counts? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A college day on measuring and setting out | Yes | Theory teaching, new, relevant, in paid hours |
| A supplier's course on a worktop jointing system | Yes | Practical training in a new skill |
| Watching the lead fitter hang a tall unit with a demonstration and explanation, the apprentice's first time | Yes | Shadowing counts when it delivers new, relevant skills, not when it is general settling in |
| An hour of assignment writing at the office, on the clock | Yes | Time spent writing assignments counts |
| Half an hour sorting the week's photos into the e-portfolio | No | Compiling a portfolio is not new learning |
| Fitting twelve base units on a live job | No | Productive work, even though the apprentice learns from it |
| Fitting the tenth hinge after being taught how | No | Practising a skill that has already been taught |
| The firm's health and safety induction on day one | No | Generic company induction |
| A review meeting with the provider's tutor | No | Progress reviews are excluded |
| An evening online module done at home | Not normally | Must be inside paid hours; exceptions need agreement and compensation and cannot cover most of the programme |
| Travelling to the college | No | Travel time is generally excluded |
Within that scheme, the same tests apply in any trade or care setting. In a childcare nursery, a paediatric first-aid course can count while a shift in the baby room does not. In a care agency, a manual-handling course can count, and shadowing a senior carer counts only if the session teaches something new. In a music school, a workshop on teaching methods can count and teaching your usual pupils does not. Treat these as starting points and ask the provider to confirm borderline cases in writing, because the provider is the one who has to defend them. Induction deserves a special mention for new starters: the first-two-weeks onboarding plan belongs in a separate record from this log.
The log itself: fields, and one filled-in week
| Field | What goes in | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Date | The day it happened | Places the activity in the planned period |
| Start and finish | Clock times, copied from evidence | Shows it fell in paid working hours; hours come from these |
| Hours | Finish minus start, to the nearest quarter hour | Totals and comparison with the plan |
| Category | Off-the-job training, supervised work process or related instruction | Lets one log serve either shape of rule |
| Activity | Course, demonstration, online session, assignment writing | Lets you test whether it counts |
| What was learnt | One sentence in the apprentice's own words | Shows it taught something new |
| Standard reference | Code of the knowledge, skill or behaviour it supports, marked "proposed" until the provider agrees | Shows it was relevant |
| Delivered by | Role, such as mentor, supplier trainer or college tutor | Shows who stood behind it |
| Evidence | Certificate, attendance record, e-portfolio entry, mentor note, photo | Proof it happened |
| Paid hours? | Yes, no or unclear | The in-working-hours test |
| Sign-offs | Apprentice initials, mentor initials, provider check | Shows it was reviewed |
If your programme also counts supervised work hours, add a column for the work process and log those hours by process from the timesheet. Here is one filled-in week for a kitchen-fitting apprentice working a 37.5-hour week (all details invented; codes in square brackets are placeholders for the standard's own references):
| Day | Time | Hours | Activity and what was learnt | Evidence | Paid hours? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 5th | 09:00 to 11:00 | 2.0 | Shadowing with demonstration: levelling and fixing a tall unit, then marking out one myself [S4, proposed] | Mentor's note and photo | Yes |
| Tue 6th | 09:30 to 13:00 | 3.5 | Supplier course: worktop jointing, cutting, joint bolts and sealing [K7, S6, proposed] | Attendance certificate | Yes |
| Thu 8th | 13:00 to 14:00 | 1.0 | Assignment writing: draft of the setting-out assignment, done at the office [K2, proposed] | E-portfolio entry dated 8th | Yes |
| Fri 9th | 14:00 to 15:30 | 1.5 | College online session: setting out kitchens from drawings [K2, K3, proposed] | Provider's attendance log | Yes |
| Week total | 8.0 | Signed by apprentice and mentor on Friday | |||
Wednesday has no entry, because the apprentice was on site fitting. That is correct: productive work on a live job is not off-the-job training and does not belong in these rows.
The shape is the same in other settings, with different content. A childcare nursery apprentice on a 35-hour week might log a six-hour paediatric first-aid course on Tuesday (supplier trainer, certificate), one hour on Wednesday morning watching the room leader demonstrate a settling routine for a new child and then trying it with feedback (mentor note), and two hours on Friday afternoon on an online child-development module (provider's platform record). That is 9.0 hours. Left out of the log are the baby-room shifts, the Thursday staff meeting and the safeguarding induction from the first week, none of which passes the four tests. Whether the first-aid course counts depends on whether the standard requires it, which is exactly the kind of question the provider answers once and you record.
From a Friday voice note to log rows without invented hours
Apprentices on site will not fill in a form with eleven columns, but they will talk into a phone for two minutes. That is where AI earns its place: turning the loose note into rows, and listing what is missing rather than filling it in. The prompt matters more than the tool.
You turn an apprentice's weekly notes into off-the-job training log rows.
Rules:
- Use only what the notes say. Never invent times, durations, names or evidence.
- One row per activity: day, start, finish, hours, activity type, what was
learnt (one sentence in the apprentice's words), delivered by, evidence
mentioned, inside paid hours (yes / no / unclear).
- Where something is missing, write MISSING in that cell and list your
questions under the table.
- Do not decide whether an activity counts. Add a column "check with
provider" and put a question mark on anything that looks like productive
work on a live job, induction, a review meeting, travel or time outside
paid hours.
- If I paste a list of standard codes, suggest one per row and label it
"proposed".
- Do not add up hours. I will total them in the spreadsheet.
Notes: [paste]Here is a dictated note: "Monday morning with the lead fitter on the tall unit, he showed me the levelling bit then I marked up one myself, about two hours. Tuesday the supplier's worktop joint course, half nine to about one, got a certificate. Thursday an hour at the office on the setting-out assignment. Friday afternoon the college online session, about an hour and a half, think it was two till half three." A good reply returns four rows, and it flags what the note does not say: Monday's start and finish times are MISSING, Thursday's start and finish are MISSING, Tuesday's certificate is named but its title is not, and Friday's "think it was two till half three" is marked unclear. Under the table it lists the questions: what time did Monday's session begin and end, was Thursday's hour inside paid time, and what does the certificate say.
That list of questions is the useful part. Without "never invent" in the prompt, an assistant tends to return tidy rows with Monday at 08:00 to 10:00 and Thursday at 09:00 to 10:00: plausible guesses that look right and are not in the notes. In the filled-in week above, the mentor's note puts Monday at 09:00 to 11:00 and the office diary puts Thursday's hour after lunch, so both guesses would have been wrong. A log full of plausible times is worse than a log with gaps, because a gap prompts a question and a guess survives until someone checks it against evidence. Ten minutes on Friday with the mentor resolves the gaps and replaces each guess-shaped hole with a time copied from the mentor's note, the certificate or the provider's attendance log.
Proposed standard codes work the same way. If you paste the list of knowledge, skills and behaviours from the standard, the assistant can suggest the best match for each row, but only the provider can confirm a mapping, so the column stays marked "proposed" until they say otherwise. Use initials for the apprentice in prompts, leave out dates of birth, addresses and ID numbers, and use a work account on a business plan where you can. The tutorial on turning on-site voice notes into job sheets covers the dictation side, and the tutorial on a training record log per team member shows the same log idea for staff training.
Who does what, week by week and month by month
A log goes stale when nobody owns a step. Give each step a name and a day:
| Who | What they do | When |
|---|---|---|
| Apprentice | Jots notes after each activity, checks the Friday rows and initials them | Weekly |
| Mentor or line manager | Confirms times and content against what they saw, signs the week, and protects the planned sessions from site pressure | Weekly |
| Office | Totals hours in the sheet, compares them with the plan and with the provider's record, flags gaps | Monthly |
| Training provider | Holds the formal record, confirms what counts, reviews progress | At each review |
| Owner | Reads the one-page monthly summary and decides which job gives way when the plan slips | Monthly |
Keep evidence in one folder, named so that it sorts by date: the date, the apprentice's initials, the activity and the type of file, for example "2026-10-06 [initials] worktop jointing course certificate.pdf". Ask the provider which electronic sign-off they accept before you rely on typed initials in a shared sheet. The first scheme's guidance accepts electronic signatures only where the provider can show they are irrefutable and have not been altered, and a spreadsheet anyone can edit may not meet that test. The tutorial on the apprentice training plan covers the other half of the paperwork: the plan says what will be delivered and when, and this log shows what was.
Month-end reconciliation: three months of a kitchen fitter's log
The same apprentice has a training plan that schedules 24 hours a month. The first month's four weeks logged 8.0, 4.5, 2.0 and 6.0 hours. The second week was a college day split between online sessions and a mentor demonstration, the third was a site rush with a single session, and the fourth included a half-day supplier course. The total is 20.5 hours against 24, a shortfall of 3.5.
| Month | Plan | Logged | Provider's record | Position against plan | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24.0 | 20.5 | 20.5 | 3.5 behind | Book a 3.5-hour catch-up in week 1 of month 2; tell the provider now |
| 2 | 24.0 | 27.5 (includes the catch-up) | 27.5 | On plan | None |
| 3 | 24.0 | 22.0 | 20.5 | 3.5 behind on provider's figure | Trace the 1.5-hour difference; correct the log; book another catch-up |
Month 3 is the one worth studying. The log says 22.0 and the provider says 20.5, a gap of 1.5 hours. The cause turns out to be an hour and a half of assignment writing that the apprentice logged from the e-portfolio entry, which shows it was written at home in the evening. It was outside paid hours, so it fails the third test, and the log is corrected to 20.5. Nothing improper happened; the check did its job. That is the point of reconciling every month rather than once a year.
A few rules keep reconciliation honest. Make up lost hours with real sessions, never with entries for training that did not happen, and never back-date. Tell the provider at month-end when the log is behind plan. In the first scheme, if the planned hours are not delivered, the provider must produce a statement for the employer and apprentice to sign, and funding can be at risk of recovery, so a gap is far easier to deal with in month one than at the end of the programme. The owner, not the apprentice, decides which job moves when site work crowds out the training. An assistant can draft the month-end heads-up to the provider from the sheet, and it can suggest catch-up slots that avoid the busiest jobs, but the statement itself and every figure in it are for people to write and sign.
The month-end summary is a good job for an assistant, because it is a straight summary of a table. Give it the month's rows and the plan, tell it to use only those figures, and ask for a one-page note for the owner and the provider. A usable result (illustrative) reads:
Month 1 summary. 20.5 of 24 planned hours logged (85%), 3.5 behind. Weekly totals: 8.0, 4.5, 2.0 and 6.0. The shortfall comes from week 3, when site work left room for one session only. All 10 logged activities have evidence on file and all have apprentice and mentor initials. A 3.5-hour catch-up is planned for week 1 of month 2 (supplier course on [topic]). Questions for the provider: please confirm that the worktop jointing course supports [K7, S6], and tell us whether you need anything from us about the month-1 shortfall.
Check the totals against the sheet before it goes, and notice that every figure in the summary came from the table rather than from the assistant's arithmetic. The email that carries it should be short, and should come from the firm, not the assistant: it asks the provider two things and says what the firm is doing about the gap.
Would this log survive a review? A five-entry test
Once a quarter, pick five entries at random and try to prove each one in under two minutes. For every entry, can you show the date and start and finish times, the evidence file, the standard reference the provider has agreed, that it fell inside paid working hours, and the two initials. If four or more pass, the routine is working, which is my rule of thumb rather than anyone's standard. If fewer pass, look at the common failure: missing times usually means the voice note is too loose, missing evidence means the folder is not being used, and unclear paid hours means the plan and the diary disagree.
The time cost is small enough to state. Ten minutes every Friday for 46 working weeks is under eight hours a year, and a 30-minute month-end check adds six more, so call it 14 hours of shared effort across apprentice, mentor and office. Rebuilding a year of undocumented training from memory before a review usually takes longer and produces weaker evidence; the exact figure depends on the firm, so time your own first month. An individual AI plan, if you use one, lists at about $20 a month.
Two habits underpin all of it. Schedule the planned sessions into the job diary at the start of each month, so release for training is a booked slot rather than a favour asked on the day. And treat AI as a typist with no memory of what happened: it structures what people tell it, flags what is missing and drafts the summary, and a person confirms every time, hour and signature against evidence.
Questions employers ask about apprentice training logs
How long should I keep the log and its evidence?
There is no single figure I can verify, because retention periods are set by the funding rules or programme sponsor and differ between schemes. Ask your training provider or sponsor in writing how long they expect you to keep the log, certificates and attendance records, and keep them at least that long. Store the log and its evidence together so one folder tells the whole story.
What if my apprentice already has relevant experience or qualifications?
Evidenced prior learning can reduce the minimum number of training hours in the scheme I checked, but only where the learning is properly evidenced, and the guidance sets a floor that the hours cannot drop below. Do not shorten the plan yourself. Ask the provider to confirm the revised hours and the evidence they need, and update the log's target once they have done so in writing.
Should the log live in a spreadsheet, an app or the provider's portal?
Use whichever your provider will accept as the single record, and ask before building your own. If the provider's portal already holds attendance and e-portfolio entries, your log can be a simple shared sheet that points to them. Two systems that disagree create work at every review, so choose one place for evidence and one for the weekly entries.
Further reads
- Compliance Calendar: Track Licences, Insurance and Certificates — Track the dates that matter, including training and certificate expiries.
- AI Time Tracking for Small Teams: Hours Without Timesheets — Capture hours without extra paperwork, which helps supervised-work tallies.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: the official off-the-job training guidance for one apprenticeship scheme (updated August 2026 to match that year's funding rules) and the published programme standards for a second, hours-based apprenticeship system (time-based, competency-based and hybrid routes). Rules differ by scheme and start date; check with your training provider or sponsor. All names, hours and the worked month in the examples are illustrative, and nothing here is legal advice.