Pictured above: (l-r) Keiran McNulty, Josh Grantham, Kyle
Coleman and Martin Yardley
The man in charge of rejuvenating Coventry city centre has
praised a training firm doing the same for the city's young
people.
Coventry-based training and digital delivery company Progressive
Educational Tools (PET) manages intensive courses throughout the UK
which give young people the opportunity to earn GCSE
equivalents.
PET also provide training for businesses and creates
award-winning digital applications for a world-wide audience.
But the Mercia business village firm has been particularly
successful in its work with 'Looked After Children' - young people
in care - in Coventry, to the extent that it was held up as an
example of good practice by the BBC's Panorama.
And this has pleased Coventry City Council's director of city
services and development Martin Yardley who, after witnessing PET's
trainers at work, decided to help the organisation find their own
centre in the City Arcade.
He said: "I remember the first time I came in to see PET working
with some of our city's less privileged youngsters.
"These kids were very aggressive, swearing and lashing out but
it was incredible to see the turnaround in them. By the end of the
programme, just a few weeks later, they were really motivated to
get on with the tasks and had achieved a lot.
"Off the back of that experience I felt it was important to help
PET get their own centre where they could give some of these kids a
stable base.
"It was just a no-brainer really because everybody wins. We fill
an empty unit in the city centre and these kids get a place to go
and get something they don't really get anywhere else.
"What PET does for these kids is fantastic because it makes them
realise they are worth something and a lot of the courses are
geared towards focusing their energies on their own community."
Some of the students who have benefited from the work of PET
presented Martin with a personalised canvas to thank him.
PET's joint managing director Fleur Sexton is also grateful for
his support, especially given the current constraints of the public
sector and the process of change in the education sector.
She said: "It is brilliant to have a centre like this for the
kids to come to and it makes such a difference.
"For some of them, the city centre base provides a place where
they can always come and learn, feel valued and develop real skills
for the real world, and we were delighted that Martin was able to
help us find such premises.
"The kids all love Martin because he is funny, he makes them
laugh and he genuinely enjoys their company.
"For someone in his position to make time to come and see them
is brilliant and it is one of the things which makes Coventry a
great place to work.
"Under the changes proposed by Secretary of State for Education
Michael Gove vocational learning will be changing.
"As a company we are in a good position to provide schools and
local authorities with help for mainstream students who are
focusing on the English Baccalaureate, as we also design digital
delivery programmes that are used in countries around the
world.
"More importantly we are able to provide flexible learning for
youngsters such as children in care where traditional
classroom-based chalk-and-talk techniques rarely work.
"But it is a worry for children, particularly those in care,
because their circumstances mean they sometimes struggle to reach
their potential through traditional, classroom-based learning
techniques, as this requires a level of stability that
unfortunately they don't have, but they truly excel and flourish
when faced with more creative and flexible environments."