How Debut Training is striving for excellence with Bud

Debut Training is a specialist training provider based in Essex, delivering hair, beauty and aesthetics training to more than 500 learners every year.

How Debut Training is striving for excellence with Bud

The beauty training sector is notoriously fast-moving, with technology continuously giving rise to new treatments and techniques. The prevalence of social media also means that beauty therapists are expected to dedicate significant amounts of time to building their brands online – an extra range of skills for them to master alongside their courses.

Despite these ongoing challenges, Bud customer Debut Training achieved an Outstanding grade from Ofsted in August 2024. We spoke to Director of Curriculum, Charlotte Hughes, about the journey to Outstanding as a smaller apprenticeship provider, and Bud’s central role in that process.

Identifying gaps and finding data

After achieving a Good grade in 2019, Debut Training immediately set their sights on an Outstanding grade. The team worked with a consultant in the beauty industry to refine their approach before implementing Bud.

“We started to streamline processes and one of those things was implementing Bud. Before that, everything was in spreadsheets and being inputted manually, which took a lot of time and we weren’t sure how accurate it was. That was a cost to the company because we weren't utilising people in the best way,” Charlotte said.

“Once we had Bud in place, the data improved, our compliance improved and the performance of our learners improved. In Bud, you can’t actually move until you’ve done everything right, so it’s nice to know that as a company, we’re being compliant because we have to be. Sometimes human error can happen, but there's no human error with Bud.”

With Bud integrated into their processes, the months leading up to the inspection were all about gathering and reviewing evidence. As Charlotte explained:

“Our director Carla got us all to do presentations and ask each other questions as if we were Ofsted. If someone couldn’t answer a question or show data for something, that was identified as a gap and they would have to go and find the data. We had three months of that, so by the time Ofsted came in, we were all prepared.”

Adapting the curriculum to new trends

Part of what makes Debut Training an outstanding training provider is the team’s investment in learner success. All learners have their kits provided to ensure an equal starting point, regardless of financial background, and Debut goes above and beyond to keep their curriculum up to date.

“The beauty industry is always adapting – there are always new treatments and new machines coming out. It’s really hard to change a qualification, so we try to put all these new treatments in place and teach learners extra units that we know are upcoming, so they're at the forefront of trends,” Charlotte said.

The curriculum also caters to different learning styles. Charlotte points out that the industry’s creative nature draws people who might struggle to get their ideas on paper, so they’ve developed a curriculum where learners will produce the same level of theoretical work but in a more creative way. This might include giving a presentation, creating things on Canva or making a video to show their knowledge.

Ofsted highlighted this approach in their report, stating “learners can access videos and collaborative online platforms to study more flexibly around their busy lives”.

Teaching learners additional skills 

Debut offers industry-related masterclasses in core beauty areas like Level 1-3 beauty and nails, advanced beauty and aesthetics and Level 1-3 hair, and even sends students on training courses at Vidal Sassoon. However, they also host a “wider curriculum week” to support learners with professional skills.

“We have people come in for social media and Canva workshops. We also have someone come in to talk about finance understanding, self-employment and how to pay your own taxes, so when learners leave, they've got that portfolio of skills and knowledge,” Charlotte said.

Commitment to excellence

One of the biggest highlights of using Bud is that it can grow with the business, as Debut Training continues to look for ways to update and improve. As Charlotte explains: “Bud will keep growing as we grow. I think with Bud, the more you put in, the more you get back.”

Debut’s forward-thinking mindset is evident in their plans for the future. The team is currently focusing on adding higher levels to cater to past learners who want to come back and further their skills.

“Although we may seem like we are a small college, we have so many learners, and we’ve had lots come back to us. They came to us when they were 16 and now they’re 30 and they’ve gone away and started their own businesses. Now they want to come back and progress with us. So that's what we want to be doing, adding to our high levels,” she said.

“We're always asking: what can we add? What new courses can we do? What can we put onto the courses to improve them? We're always going to be adapting so we can have those relationships with our learners and they feel like they can come back and progress with us.”

Find out more about Bud

Want to create a culture of continuous improvement? Streamline processes, drive compliance and keep learners on track with Bud’s joined-up apprenticeship delivery platform.

Capture everything from enrolment to endpoint assessment, and access comprehensive reporting in a user-friendly format to easily monitor performance and progress across the board.

Get in touch to learn more about how Bud can transform your training delivery, or book a discovery call now.