Julian's Story

Julian Powell from Sir William Stanier has been offered an apprenticeship at Grosvenor garage in Crewe.

In February 08 I was approached by Dave Pleavin the proprietor of Grosvenor garage in Crewe to see if I could find a student who could attend an extended placement from March 08 until the summer with the possibility of been taken on an apprenticeship when he left school in the summer 08.  The manager explained that he was looking for a new apprentice so he could promote his apprentice to Assistant Manager.

Dave Pleavin feels that the Extended work experience programme is an easy way to recruit a young person and he has the chance to work with them for a while and get to know them and see if they have the natural ability to learn the job, he was able to look for a recruit without having to commit to taking someone he didn’t really know on.

Julian was approached by Rachel Whitehurst the Connexions Personal Advisor at Sir William Stanier School and asked if he would like to apply for the opportunity. Julian was very keen to apply he said ”he had always wanted to be a car mechanic and wasn’t sure how he could achieve this”.  Julian attended an interview with Dave at Grosvenor Garage and was offered the opportunity to do go on the work experience starting on the 27th February 2008.

Julian managed to keep up with his school work and worked hard on his placement learning skills such as servicing cars, assisting with MOTs, changing tyres, balancing wheels and helping with clutches and engine changes.

In May 2008, Dave felt that Julian had proved that he was able to do the job and fitted in well, he offered him the apprenticeship to start when Julian finished school in June. Dave made contact with the college and Total People to get the apprenticeship set up ready for Julian to start his formal training in September.

A year later and Julian has really enjoyed learning lots of new skills and now has a good knowledge of car mechanics he likes to be treated like an adult and enjoys attending college one day a week. Julian has bought himself a moped to get to work on with his wages and feels more independent. Julian’s parents are very proud of his achievements and are happy that he has settled in his job.

Julian’s plans were to attend E2E until this opportunity came along but now feels that this opportunity has pushed his life FAST FORWARD and he now is at a stage he couldn’t have imagined being 12 months ago.