John Penrose

Conservative Party | Weston-super-Mare

Weston MP and Mayor Get into Gear with Teen Trainees

Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose gets into gear today (Fri, Nov 16), pulling on a pair of overalls to open a new fully equipped mechanical workshop and garage, out to put troubled teenagers on the road to becoming qualified car mechanics.
 
Joining the MP for the opening at the Rathbone charity’s Weston centre, on the town’s Winterstoke Road, is Mayor of Weston, Councillor John Ley-Morgan.

The Rathbone centre’s new £20,000 workshop facility offers young people the chance to learn a trade with earning potential of around £30,000 a year.

Rolling up their sleeves with Weston’s MP and Mayor will be a trio of the first local workshop trainees – 15-year-olds Aiden Swanson and Matthew Upton and 16-year-old Andrew Dymock. All three Weston teenagers will be on hand to help open the garage and launch a drive to recruit more trainees.

Operating in Weston since 1999, national educational charity Rathbone provides alternative “Youth Choices” at Key Stage 4. The charity’s remit is to banish teenage unemployment, boredom and despair by providing a sense of direction for young people who have experienced problems at home or school.

Helping 80% of its young ‘learners’ progress to further education, full time employment or training, the Rathbone programme of learning mixes formal lessons in numeracy and literacy with the chance to gain work experience. Rathbone also helps jobless adults learn new skills, offering support and encouragement in their search for work.

Says MP John Penrose: “This garage workshop initiative by Rathbone is not just practical but inspirational too, providing a springboard for young people to become engaged in a trade and learn a whole life skill.

“The facility also has the potential to benefit the whole community, with plans to open the workshop to adults at evenings, weekends and in school holidays, offering self-help classes in basic car mechanics and maintenance to men and women alike.”

Any teenage starter on the Rathbone motor vehicle repair course will receive a mix of formal education, life skills and work-based learning, working towards a City & Guilds qualification before accelerating on to an Apprenticeship. Rathbone also plans to start separate evening and weekend basic car repair and maintenance classes for adults.

Comments John Biddle, Rathbone Centre Manager for Weston-super-Mare: “For young people who are maybe struggling a bit with academic life at school, a useful and potentially lucrative trade is an attractive proposition.  We hope our initial recruits are the first of many trainees who will one day become fully-fledged mechanics, providing a useful service to the whole community.”