Brevet professionnel and craft trades: finding a workshop that passes on its skills

Two qualifications close in level, different in spirit

The brevet professionnel (BP) is a qualification at baccalaureate level aimed at people who already hold a first qualification, often a CAP, or who have experience in the trade. It takes two years to prepare, very often as an apprenticeship but also through adult continuing training. Its specialisms cover the crafts, catering, hairdressing, construction, agriculture and sport.

The brevet des métiers d’art (crafts and artistic trades diploma) has its own logic: it deepens a skill in a field of creation or restoration, such as ceramics, bookbinding, ornamental ironwork, marquetry or jewellery. It requires you to show your own work and to master fine techniques. The two routes share one thing: you learn by doing, alongside professionals who agree to pass on what they know.

From BMA to BNMA: check the name of your own programme

The brevet national des métiers d’art, the BNMA, was created to replace the former brevet des métiers d’art (BMA) gradually. The stated aim of the French Ministry of Education is to make these courses clearer and more attractive, with a harmonised national framework. In practice the transition happens specialism by specialism and school by school, so two students in the same year may not be preparing exactly the same title.

Before signing anything, ask the school or the apprentice training centre which qualification is being prepared, which framework applies and how the workplace periods are organised. This precision avoids putting on a CV or in a letter a qualification whose name no longer matches reality.

Three statuses, three ways of spending time in a workshop

Your activity in the business depends on the status under which you prepare the qualification.

• School student: you attend classes at a vocational school and complete workplace training periods governed by an agreement. Time in the workshop is more limited and the stipend depends on the length.
• Apprentice: you sign an employment contract with an employer and alternate with classes at the apprentice training centre. You are an employee and are paid.
• Adult in continuing training: suitable funding and a suitable contract, often for a career change, with workplace periods defined by the scheme.

Each status changes your rights, your length of attendance and the people you deal with. A host workshop must know which one applies so as to draw up the right documents.

Apprenticeship: contract, length and pay

An apprenticeship contract is an employment contract concluded with an employer for the length of the training, generally from one to three years depending on the qualification and the starting level. In principle it is open to young people aged 16 up to and including 29, with exceptions provided for by the regulations. The apprentice is guided by an apprenticeship tutor who must show a qualification or experience in the trade.

Pay is a percentage of the statutory minimum wage, which varies with the apprentice’s age and the year of the contract. The scales and hiring subsidies change from year to year: look up the current information before negotiating. A small craft workshop may hesitate to hire, because training takes time. The apprentice training centre and the chamber of trades help to put the paperwork together.

Recognising a workshop that really trains

In the craft trades, the quality of the welcome lies in the passing on of skills. A good workshop leaves time to explain the choice of material, the preparation of supports, the tooling and the finishing, instead of confining a beginner to cleaning or repetitive tasks unconnected with the framework. A few signs help you check this during a visit.

• The person in charge describes the techniques they intend to entrust to you, with a progression.
• Pieces at different stages are visible, including corrected mistakes.
• Former apprentices or interns are willing to give their account.
• The workshop knows the qualification being prepared and how the work-study is organised.
• The pace of orders leaves room to learn without rushing.

A highly specialised workshop run by a single person may pass on a rare skill but have little time available: ask the question frankly.

Building a portfolio that shows your real level

To convince a craftsperson, an ordinary CV is not enough. Prepare a small portfolio of a few pieces or photographs: CAP projects, personal work, sketches, samples. Each image should come with a precise sentence on the technique, the time taken and the difficulty met. Also present the qualification you already hold, your earlier placements and your reasons for being drawn to this field rather than another.

Your application letter benefits from naming a piece by the workshop that you have seen in a shop, an exhibition or at a trade fair, and from explaining what it taught you about the trade. Come to the interview with practical questions: hours, tools supplied, protective clothing, how tasks will evolve, assessment by the training centre.

Setting the tasks, the records and the assessment

Before you begin, agree with the person in charge which operations you will observe or carry out, which exercises are possible outside customer orders and which records are permitted. A photograph of a work in progress or a production sheet can be sensitive: some houses protect their techniques, designs or suppliers.

Ask what can be kept for the examination file, what can be shown to the panel and what must stay in the workshop. Regularly note in a notebook the techniques learned, the mistakes and their corrections. This personal record serves for the review with the training centre’s tutor, for assessments in the business and for preparing the practical test.

A fictional example: a year of apprenticeship in cabinet-making

An illustration with rounded data. Karim, who holds a CAP, aims for a brevet professionnel in a woodworking trade. He visits three workshops and picks one, where the apprenticeship tutor first entrusts him with sanding, preparing joints and maintaining the tools, then with building a small piece of furniture from start to finish.

The work-study calendar provides about three weeks in the business for one week at the training centre. After six months he masters simple joints; in the second year he prepares a complete piece for the test. His pay, proportional to the minimum wage, rises from one year to the next. This example is not a promise: the real rhythm depends on the centre, the workshop and the contract.

Common mistakes and fallback options

• Signing without knowing which qualification is being prepared: ask in writing for the exact title and the training centre it is attached to.
• Accepting a workshop simply because it is recruiting, without checking how much room it leaves for learning.
• Presenting a portfolio that flatters too much: an honest portfolio reassures more than a piece visibly out of reach.
• Neglecting practical constraints: journey, hours, personal equipment, housing near the workshop.
• Locking yourself into a single trade: planning a second, related specialism widens your chances.

If no workshop replies, a discovery period, a crafts fair or an immersion day lets you widen your network before you send applications again.