Build the plan around a skills matrix of 30 to 50 tasks taken from your own jobs, give every task four supervision stages from watching to signed off, and hold a 20-minute weekly review plus a monthly one that the owner signs. AI drafts the matrix, task cards and review sheets; a competent person signs each stage.
Apprentice plans tend to fail at the sign-off, not the syllabus. "Shown how to" gets ticked on the same day as "can do it alone", nobody reviews the sheet, and by week six it is curling in a van door pocket. What works is a plan small enough to run every week: one matrix, one ladder of stages, a review slot that survives a busy schedule, and one named person who signs. It records training and practice. It does not replace any certificate, registration or programme requirement that your trade or your apprentice's course sets.
Start from the jobs you actually sell
A skills matrix is a table of the tasks a competent person in your trade performs, with a column showing how far the apprentice has got on each one. Do not download a generic matrix and trim it; it will be full of tasks you never do and will miss the ones you do daily. List the last 30 jobs you finished, write down the tasks each one needed, and group them into six to eight areas.
The firm used throughout this tutorial is illustrative: a four-person plumbing and heating business made up of the owner, two plumbers and a first-year apprentice. Its list of 30 jobs produced 42 tasks in eight areas: site basics, tools and materials, joining, fixtures and drainage, heating, gas and hot water, customer handover, and paperwork.
Write every task so that someone could watch it happen: "fit a basin tap and flexible connectors", not "basic plumbing". Then give each task a risk class, because the class decides who may supervise it and how far the apprentice can go before the owner steps in.
- Class A: low consequence if done badly, such as protecting floors, preparing tube or completing the job sheet.
- Class B: needs close supervision at first because of heat, water, weight or hidden fixings, such as soldering, fitting fixtures or draining a heating circuit.
- Class C: work that needs a certificate or registration, or that can cause serious harm if wrong. The firm's ceiling is stage 1 (watching and explaining) until the apprentice holds any certification the work calls for and the owner decides they are ready. After that, the owner personally signs every stage change.
Here is a 14-task excerpt from the 42-task matrix. The classes and target stages are the owner's decisions; the AI only proposes them.
| Area | Task | Class | Target by week 12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site basics | Isolate a water supply, drain down and make safe | B | Stage 2 |
| Site basics | Protect floors and fittings before work starts | A | Stage 3 |
| Tools and materials | Cut and prepare copper tube cleanly | A | Stage 3 |
| Joining | Make compression joints | B | Stage 3 |
| Joining | Make soldered capillary joints (naked flame) | B | Stage 2 |
| Fixtures and drainage | Fit a basin tap and flexible connectors; test for leaks | B | Stage 3 |
| Fixtures and drainage | Fit and seal a toilet pan | B | Stage 2 |
| Fixtures and drainage | Fit a basin waste and trap | B | Stage 2 |
| Heating | Fit radiator valves; bleed and balance a radiator | B | Stage 2 |
| Heating | Drain, flush and refill a heating circuit | B | Stage 1 |
| Gas and hot water | Work on gas appliances or pipework | C | Stage 1, observe only |
| Gas and hot water | Commission a pressurised hot-water system | C | Stage 1, observe only |
| Customer handover | Leave a site clean and explain the work to the customer | A | Stage 3 |
| Paperwork | Complete the job sheet and take the photo set | A | Stage 3 |
Notice what is missing from the table: standards, regulations and qualification names. Those belong to whoever sets the rules for your trade, they change, and an AI draft is the wrong place to quote them. If your trade requires specific training before a class C task, the matrix simply holds the line at observe only.
A four-stage ladder and who signs each rung
"Competent" is too big a word to tick. Break it into four stages and attach a signature and a piece of evidence to each, so a stage means the same thing whichever supervisor is on the job.
| Stage | What it means | Who signs | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0. Not yet shown | The apprentice has not seen the task done on a real job | Nobody | None |
| 1. Shown | Has watched, and can explain each step and the reason for it in their own words | Supervisor | A line in the weekly sheet |
| 2. Supervised | Does the whole task with a supervisor beside them, ready to step in | Supervisor | Initials, date and job reference on the card |
| 3. Alone, then checked | Does the task without a supervisor beside them, on a site where one is reachable; the result is checked before anyone relies on it | Supervisor | The checked result plus a photo |
| 4. Signed off | Three results in a row at stage 3 with no rework, across at least two different jobs | Owner | Owner's signature and date on the card |
The three-in-a-row rule at stage 4 is the part that is easiest to skip. One tidy result proves the apprentice can do the task on a good day. Three in a row, on at least two jobs, shows it holds when the job is awkward. Pick a different number if you prefer, but write it down so the apprentice knows the target and every supervisor applies it the same way. A rule you cannot explain in one breath will not be applied on a wet Thursday.
Stage 3 is where lone-working questions begin, because nobody is standing beside the apprentice. Decide what "on site and reachable" means for each class B task and keep it consistent with your lone working check-in rules. Where a task needs a competent person's approval before it goes live, the principle is the one in this tutorial on competent-person sign-off: the AI drafts, and a named human with the right experience decides.
A sign-off card, filled in for one first-year task
Each task gets a one-page card that travels with the apprentice. This one is for a class B task and shows the card after three weeks of use. On your own cards the supervisor writes the real checkpoints, including the manufacturer's instructions and any safety rule that applies.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Task | FIX-03: Fit a basin tap and flexible connectors; test for leaks |
| Class | B (water damage if wrong) |
| Ceiling until the owner signs | Stage 3 |
| Supervisor must step in if | The apprentice reaches for the wrong connector, over-tightens, or skips the leak check |
| Common first-year slips | Forgetting to protect the floor; turning the supply on too fast; leaving the isolation point unmarked |
Checkpoints for FIX-03:
- Isolates the supply, opens the old tap to confirm it is off, and says where the isolation point is.
- Protects the basin and floor before starting.
- Uses the new connectors and seals supplied with the tap, not parts left over from the old fitting.
- Tightens firmly without forcing, and the supervisor checks alignment.
- Turns the supply on slowly, then checks every joint dry with tissue straight away and again after ten minutes.
- Tidies up and tells the customer what was done and how to isolate the supply.
The sign-off log on the back of the card is where the evidence builds. This is week 3 to week 6:
| When | Job ref | Stage | Result | Clean run | Signed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 3, Tue | J-0412 | 2 | Two prompts needed, at checkpoints 3 and 5 | n/a | Supervisor 1 |
| Week 4, Mon | J-0419 | 2 | No prompts | n/a | Supervisor 2 |
| Week 5, Thu | J-0431 | 3 | Alone; one joint showed a weep, retightened and noted | 0 of 3 (rework) | Supervisor 1 |
| Week 6, Tue | J-0447 | 3 | Alone; all joints dry at ten minutes | 1 of 3 | Supervisor 2 |
The week 5 line is the rule working as intended. The apprentice reached stage 3 but needed rework, so the count of clean runs stays at zero and nobody is arguing about it later. Job references stand in for customer names and addresses, which keeps the card shareable.
The same format flexes across trades. A joinery firm's card for hanging an internal door would have checkpoints such as marking hinge positions on frame and door, cutting recesses to the depth of the hinge leaf, checking an even gap on all sides, and testing swing and latch. A class C card, such as an electrician's "carry out safe isolation before work on a circuit", carries a different header: ceiling stage 1 until certified, a supervisor present at all times, no live working by the apprentice, and the owner's signature before any stage change.
The weekly review sheet: twenty minutes, same slot every week
The matrix tells you where the apprentice is; the weekly review keeps them moving. Fix a slot, such as the last twenty minutes on Friday in the van or the yard, and treat it like a booked job. The apprentice speaks first (what I did, what went well, what I got wrong, what I could not explain). The supervisor speaks second. Then the two of them choose next week's three target tasks from the matrix and the jobs booked. Hazards and near-misses go on the sheet every week, even when the answer is none.
This is the firm's sheet at week 6:
| Field | Week 6 entry |
|---|---|
| Tasks attempted | Basin tap and connectors (stage 3, clean run 1 of 3); basin waste and trap (stage 2); job sheet and photo set (stage 3) |
| Went well | Tap job done alone with all joints dry at ten minutes; photo set complete without a reminder |
| Got wrong | Forgot to protect the floor before the waste job; drained down late and wet the cupboard base |
| Could not explain | Why a trap needs a water seal. Supervisor explained; apprentice to say it back on Monday |
| Hazards or near-misses | Touched a hot pipe near the cylinder. No injury. Supervisor reminded the apprentice to mark hot areas |
| Next week's three targets | Waste and trap again (aim for stage 3); radiator valve change (stage 1 to 2); explain a finished job to the customer |
| Supervisor comment | Two unprompted checks on the tap job; still needs prompting on floor protection |
| Apprentice comment | Would like more practice soldering before touching a customer's pipes |
| Signed | Supervisor and apprentice, same day |
Two rules keep the sheet honest. First, the supervisor comment is evidence, not character: "two unprompted checks on the tap job" is useful, "good attitude" is not. Second, a missed review is made up before the first job on Monday, and two missed in a row is a flag for the owner. Voice notes make the apprentice's half easy. They record two minutes in the van, and AI turns the transcript into the sheet fields; the method is the same one described in turning on-site voice notes into job sheets.
Prompts that draft the matrix, the cards and the review sheet
Three prompts do most of the paperwork. Run them in a ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini chat, or in a project or workspace that already holds your list of job types so you do not paste it every time. In each case the output is a draft for your supervisors to correct with a pen.
Prompt 1: the matrix
I run a four-person plumbing and heating firm. Our last 30 jobs were:
[paste a plain list, e.g. bathroom refits, boiler swaps, radiator changes, leak repairs]
Build a skills matrix for a first-year apprentice with about 40 tasks in 8 areas.
For each task give: area; the task in plain words starting with a verb; a risk
class (A = low consequence, B = needs close supervision because of heat, water,
weight or hidden fixings, C = work that needs a certificate or registration or
can cause serious harm if wrong); and a sensible target week for stage 2.
Rules: only tasks our jobs actually need. Do not name standards, regulations or
qualifications. Mark every class C task "observe only until certified". Output
a table.What comes back is usually a tidy table of 40 to 45 rows, and it is wrong in predictable ways. It adds tasks your firm never does (solar thermal, commercial kitchens). It rates hot work as class A because the task sounds small. It writes "understand" tasks that nobody can watch. And despite the instruction it may slip in a standard or regulation by name. Cross each one out. A first pass with the two plumbers at the kitchen table, pen in hand, takes about an hour and a half.
Prompt 2: a task card
Write a sign-off card for this task: [task], risk class [B].
Give 5 to 8 checkpoints a supervisor can see or test (no "understands" or
"is aware of"), 3 common first-year mistakes, and the point where the supervisor
must step in. Where a manufacturer's instruction or a safety rule applies, write
"[supervisor to add the specific rule]" instead of stating it. Do not include any
numbers such as torques, temperatures or pressures.Asking for no numbers is deliberate: a confident wrong figure is worse than a blank. The placeholders remind the supervisor to copy in the real value from the manufacturer's instructions. The checkpoints that come back are usually good on the obvious steps and thin on the failure points, so add two from your own memory of where first-years get caught.
Prompt 3: the weekly sheet
Here are the apprentice's voice-note transcript and the supervisor's three
bullet points for week [n]. Fill in this review sheet using only what they say.
If a field has no evidence, write "no evidence this week".
[paste the sheet fields]
Then list the five matrix tasks with the lowest stage that fit the jobs booked
next week: [paste booked job types]. Do not comment on the apprentice's attitude
or character.Check that "no evidence this week" actually appears where it should. The assistant's instinct is to fill every box with something encouraging, and a sheet full of invented praise is worse than a half-empty honest one.
Run against the week 6 voice note, a first draft typically gets four fields wrong in ways a quick read misses:
| Field | The draft said | The notes support | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went well | "Excellent progress across all tasks and a very positive attitude" | Tap job done alone with joints dry at ten minutes; photo set complete without a reminder | Replace with the two facts; delete the attitude comment |
| Could not explain | "No evidence this week" | The apprentice said they could not explain why a trap holds a water seal | Restore it; the gap is the point of the field |
| Hazards or near-misses | "None reported" | Touched a hot pipe near the cylinder; no injury | Restore the near-miss as the supervisor described it |
| Suggested targets | "Commission the hot-water cylinder" | Not in either note, and a class C task | Delete; class C stays at observe only |
The faults run in opposite directions, which is why skimming misses them: the praise was invented, while the near-miss and the knowledge gap were dropped because they did not fit an upbeat summary. Read the hazards field against the voice note every week, and check every suggested target against its risk class before it reaches the sheet.
The monthly review the owner signs
Once a month, the owner sits down for 45 minutes with the matrix, the four weekly sheets and the apprentice. The page they sign covers tasks that changed stage, rework incidents, attendance, progress on any course, and one thing to change next month. AI can produce the summary from counts, so feed it numbers rather than names or chat. Here is how the firm's 42 tasks moved across the first quarter:
| End of | Stage 0 | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 | 28 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 42 |
| Month 2 | 20 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 42 |
| Month 3 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 42 |
Stage 4 is still empty at month 3, and that is correct: the three-in-a-row rule needs weeks of repeats. The shape of the table tells the owner where to look.
- Many tasks at stage 1, few at stage 2: the apprentice is watching more than doing. Pair them with a supervisor on the jobs that need those tasks.
- Many at stage 2, none at stage 3: supervisors never step back. Pick two class A tasks and set a date for "alone, then checked".
- Stage 3 results followed by rework: a stage was signed too early. Drop it back one stage, without blame, and reset the clean-run count.
If the apprentice is also on a formal programme, the owner's page should note when the provider's evidence is due and whether the weekly sheets feed it. The off-the-job training log tutorial covers the recording side of that.
Twelve weeks for a four-person plumbing and heating firm
Put the pieces together and the first quarter looks like this. The order follows what a first-year can safely start with, not the order of the matrix.
| Weeks | Focus | Matrix movement by the end | What the review checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Site basics, tools and materials, customer handover | Stage 1 on about 12 tasks; no tools used alone | Can the apprentice explain each step in their own words? |
| 3 to 4 | Cutting and preparing tube, compression joints, paperwork | First stage 2 results; job sheet at stage 3 | Are prompts falling at the same checkpoint? |
| 5 to 6 | Basin tap, waste and trap | First stage 3 on a fixture task | Any rework? Is floor protection a habit yet? |
| 7 to 8 | Radiator valves, isolating and draining down | Stage 2 on heating tasks | Are supervisors stepping back on class A tasks? |
| 9 to 10 | Soldered joints under direct supervision, toilet pan | Stage 1 to 2 on hot work | Hot-work checks, hazards, near-misses |
| 11 to 12 | Consolidation on repeat tasks; first look at heating circuit work | 42 tasks split 12 / 12 / 10 / 8 across stages 0 to 3 | Owner's month 3 review; set next quarter's targets |
What does it cost in time? Setting up takes about four hours: roughly two for the AI drafting and two for the plumbers to correct it. The weekly review takes 20 minutes plus ten minutes of admin, which is six hours over twelve weeks. The three monthly reviews take 45 minutes each, about two and a quarter hours. That totals roughly 12 hours across the quarter, split between the owner and two supervisors. To see what a trainee costs the business beyond those hours, work through the labour burden rate before you decide how many supervised jobs a week you can afford to give them.
Once the matrix exists, the same paperwork carries into the second year with new rows and higher targets. For a new starter's first fortnight, the employee onboarding plan covers the non-trade basics: logins, uniform, how to report in.
Where sign-off schemes go wrong
The ghost sign-off. A supervisor initials stage 3 for compression joints after one tidy joint. Two weeks later a joint weeps behind a kitchen unit. Nobody was cavalier; the card simply said stage 3, so the apprentice worked without a check. The stage definitions and the clean-run count exist to stop exactly this, and the fix after a slip is to drop the stage back and say so on the card.
Generic cards. AI-written checkpoints can read like a textbook: "ensures a leak-free installation". That is an outcome, not a checkpoint. Replace it with something a supervisor can see, such as "joints dry on tissue after ten minutes".
A plan that fights the job list. If the three target tasks for next week have nothing to do with the jobs booked, they will not happen. Choose targets by looking at the diary first and the matrix second, and use the AI step to match them.
Easy-tasks drift. Apprentices get handed the clean-up, the fetching and the van restock, because it suits the schedule. Check the monthly counts for class B tasks specifically; if they are flat, the apprentice is being used as a labourer rather than trained.
The owner never signs. If stage 4 depends on one busy person, it waits. Block 45 minutes in the diary on the same day every month, before the first month starts.
Handling an apprentice's details in AI tools
An apprentice may be a teenager, and the sheets contain observations about a person's performance. Keep the chat free of home addresses, health information, family circumstances and disciplinary matters; first names or initials are enough for the AI to draft a sheet. Use a business plan where you can, because business plans do not train models on your content by default, and on a personal account switch off the model-training setting in the privacy options. The signed paper or PDF card is the record. The AI chat is scrap paper and should not be the only place anything lives.
How to tell the plan is working by week twelve
Three questions are enough. Can the apprentice explain, without prompting, why each step in two or three tasks is done that way? Has any signed-off or stage 3 task been redone in the last month? And did the weekly review happen at least ten times out of twelve? If the answers are yes, no and yes, the plan is doing its job and the next quarter just needs harder targets. If the review slot slipped, fix the slot before touching the matrix. If rework is rising, look at the stage definitions before blaming the apprentice or the AI.
Questions owners ask before starting an apprentice plan
How many tasks should an apprentice skills matrix hold?
Start with 30 to 50 tasks in six to eight areas. Fewer than 30 hides gaps, and more than 60 never gets reviewed. Write each task as something a supervisor could watch, such as fit a basin tap and flexible connectors, not plumbing basics. Add rows as new job types arrive, but keep the whole matrix to two printed pages so supervisors actually use it.
Can AI decide when an apprentice is competent?
No. AI can draft the matrix, turn voice notes into review sheets and count progress, but it has not seen the work. Competence is judged by a supervisor who watched the task and by the owner who signs stage 4. Treat any AI comment on skill or attitude as unsupported and leave it out of the record.
What if my apprentice is also on a college or provider programme?
Their requirements come first. Ask the provider what evidence it needs and in what format, then use the matrix as the day-to-day layer underneath it: tasks, stages and dates. Check what the apprentice and the provider expect before pasting any of the provider's forms or feedback into an AI tool.
Should the apprentice see what the AI wrote about them?
Yes. Read the review sheet together before it is filed, let the apprentice correct facts and add a line of their own, and delete anything that reads as a judgement rather than evidence. A sheet the apprentice has never seen turns the review into surveillance, and people stop being candid in the voice notes it is built from.
Further reads
- The First 30 Days of AI in a Trades Business — Plan the wider first month of AI use alongside the new starter.
- AI Content Approval Workflow: Draft, Check, Sign Off — The same draft, check, sign-off habit applied to written work.
- AI for a Painting Business: Snag Lists and Final Walkthrough Sign-Off — A worked sign-off routine for the end of a job.
- AI Interview Software for Video Interviews: A Hiring Checklist for Trades — A hiring checklist for trades firms: which AI interview features to use, which to avoid, and the notice, consent and bias checks to run first.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: practical method written for this tutorial; business-plan training default from Anthropic's privacy centre, checked October 2026. Certification and apprenticeship programme requirements should be checked with whoever sets them for your trade.