Practical skills are taught on a locally approved farm, while the underpinning knowledge is taught in a local centre. Two one-week block releases in Greenmount or Enniskillen allow specialist skills such as milking, and silage feeding to be covered. Programmes specialise in the enterprise management of a specific farm enterprise, such as beef, sheep or dairy. The Modern Apprenticeship is a knowledge based course and is taught using a variety of methods such as case studies, farm visits, industry visits and exercises, all of which are related back to enterprise management. Topics covered include nutrition management and ration formulation, fertility management, animal health, compositional quality and financial benchmarking, health and safety and record keeping.
Visits are an important part and are closely related to course content.
Seeing examples of good management on a visit adds impact to a topic being covered in class. During the course, trainees are required to keep a farm diary. This allows essential information to be gathered and stored for the duration of the course. This information is then used to draw up performance indicators for the home farm or work experience farm. Modern Apprenticeship trainees have an opportunity to develop specialist skills through the completion of additional awards in specialist topics.