Barbara Cox Awards 2022
nominees: Claire Perkins
of Stoneacre Academy
Brief biography of you and your career
As Group Academy Manager for Stoneacre Motor Group I manage the training and recruitment division across the Stoneacre Group. I joined Stoneacre Motor Group in May 2015 and successfully set Stoneacre up as an Ofsted training school to deliver within the FE sector predominately delivering apprenticeships and national vocational qualifications. I went through a very stringent process and completed all the due diligence for government including writing all relevant policies and procedures in line with the Common Inspectors framework for further education and education of skills funding rules. I then submitted an application for approval and to become registered on the RoATP. The Academy achieved full approval in June 2015.
As part of this process, I decided to recruit my teachers differently. Instead of taking already qualified teachers, I recruited senior managers, master technicians from all sectors of the business, trained and developed them and put them through teacher qualifications. I strongly believe that this gives us the best of the best teachers, as I have occupational experts with up to 30 years of industry knowledge who are now qualified teachers. Thus, giving everyone the best opportunities and investing in current employees who now want to develop others with their vast knowledge and skills and develop their own careers.
The Academy is Ofsted regulated and Stoneacre was one of the first Automotive Companies in the UK to have its own school. With the success of the academy the directors invested, after 2 years, a further £750,000 and we expanded the Academy to have its own state of the art technical school. I now manage all sectors within the company with the exception of paint and body apprentices. Additionally, focus of everyone’s continuous professional development by training and developing Stoneacre employees to further their career.
As Group Academy Manager, I have the privilege of playing a key part within Stoneacre Motor Group that includes strategic planning to raise standards through recruitment, training and development and shared practice. I additionally work with keys stakeholders for example Toyota and Lexus and on the Training and development committee.
Over the last few years, I have successfully managed the Stoneacre Motor Group/Academy into its Matrix Accreditation and has achieved 100% for all the latest audits. The Academy has consistently surpassed the national benchmark relating to retention, achievement and success rates. I am so proud to say that we still have 96% of our apprentices in a Career for Life and 37% of those have progressed into leadership and manager roles.
I have successfully taken the Academy through the RoATP due diligence 3 times and still maintain approval on the new Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers, along with key Awarding bodies including ‘Institute of Motor Industry’, NCFE and City & Guilds. Additionally, the Academy won in the first 2 years, the ‘Automotive Management Award for the best training and development programme 2017.
The pandemic was a new challenge for everyone, and the safety of our employees was paramount to me. I had to restructure the whole running of the school and the Academy we built a digital school, so our apprentices and employees’ development didn’t stop. We have maintained this platform and as a company now deliver all our employees induction training, legislation training etc through online learning. This is not only commercial, but we can reach out to all our employees very quickly to ensure they receive all appropriate training and development. This platform was imperative in the pandemic as I built a whole area on Health and wellbeing, support mechanisms for dealing with the pandemic, which including sadly domestic violence and keeping safe. One of these videos was regarding the hand signal you can use on video calls to notify you are in danger of domestic abuse. These videos and safeguarding training that I have delivered over the years and developed our whole company to recognise signs and we have had some very serious incidents where if it wasn’t for the training and managers recognising it would of potential lost a few people under horrific crimes. Employees have thanked me as they have helped keeping their own family and children safe from online safety etc.
I have now successfully taken the Academy through 3 Ofsted inspections with the final inspection being a full inspection. The final report was graded outstanding in all 6 areas including, Quality of Education, leadership and management and personal development. The Education & skills funding agency were also present when given the results along with a ‘Senior Her Majesty’s Inspector’ as they explained that since the Levy, Stoneacre is the only employer / provider in the UK to achieve these results. This was so highly commended that parliament wrote a letter stating, “how we have played a vital part to help young people and adults achieve their potential and thus strengthen local communities and employers to achieve growth by improving workforce skills and the job prospects by the people we train. It went onto say it is companies like ours that equip people with the skills they need to succeed in life. “
My hands on experience ranges from 26 years of operational to strategic management and corporate development throughout. I have worked in Further Education, L&D & Skills for over 18 years. Including delivery as an adult teacher, Learning and development manager for newly appointed managers and aspiring managers, an assessor, curriculum leader, operations manager and set up a previous provider. Prior to Further Education and learning and development, I had 11 years management experience within the retail and sales sector. Qualifications since leaving school include; Foundation degree in Leadership and Management, Learning and Development level 3, Key Skills Communication and Application of Number level 3 and Functional Skills, Maths, English and ICT Level 2, Principles of Management Level 5, Preparing to teach in the lifelong sector Level 3, Mental Health first aider, safeguarding officer level 4 and IOSH Working Safely.
However, I feel my biggest and best achievement is changing people’s lives and seeing junior employees and apprentices managing and fulfilling their own careers. Having parents come up to you and say you’ve changed their child’s life. Also, inspiring woman like myself to grow in the industry. One young lady saying, “I started 2 years ago with the Academy, as an apprentice. I am only 19 years old and have now been promoted to a manager and buying my own house”. I can personally say, there is no qualification to beat this feeling. I have attached ( link below) one of many videos where employees talk about this.
