Portal Educational Training expands into North Wales

Portal Educational Training is expanding its services into North Wales following 300% business growth in the past three years.

The Cardiff-based training provider has quadrupled the strength of its workforce in the North over the past 18 months after learner numbers in the region more than tripled from 30 to more than 100 in the last two years.

Founded in 2010, the company has also tripled its overall headcount from 13 employees in 2016 to almost 40 in 2019 – a growth of 300%. Four of those appointed within that period were Leadership and Management Assessors for North Wales, three of them in 2018 alone.

Portal is a leading Welsh training organisation delivering high quality and creative leadership and management training courses, programmes and resources for professionals working in the education, business and sporting sectors.

Gwawr Booth, Managing Director at Portal, said: “Our team here at Portal has expanded year on year in direct response to a rapidly growing need for our services in supporting education, business and sporting-based professionals to grow and develop their skills alongside their existing work commitments.

“This growth, we believe, is indicative of a changing attitude to vocational training industry-wide – and is one which appears to be flourishing not least in the North of Wales, where those accessing the programmes and resources they need to succeed have risen rapidly in recent years.”

Portal is a dynamic and innovative bilingual training provider delivering the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) level 4 and 5 diploma qualifications in Leadership and Management to professionals and teachers aspiring to further develop their management and leadership skills and assist in their quest for promotion.

Portal also designed and delivers its own SWEET resource – a BTEC Personal and Social Development qualification at entry level, level 1 and 2 award and certificate for Key Stage 4 pupils – during Personal and Social Education allocated lessons, as a tool to motivate those who are disengaged in the school environment, and as a resource assisting with the delivery of the Welsh Baccalaureate.

As a business, board membership at Portal also has a strong female presence and has also grown five-fold since its inception, with Clare Jeffries and Janice Hart most recently appointed as Operations Director and Quality Director respectively in late 2018.

They join Managing Director Gwawr Booth and board director Nerys Evans in leading a 40-strong team in providing services to around 500 learners currently on its books across Wales.

Gwawr said: “Our focus as an organisation lies firmly on assisting in raising achievements across various educational and professional programmes by delivering high end training, resources and other programmes within the working environment.

“We are delighted that ever growing demand for our services means we now get to spread our message even more widely across Wales, including in the north where are just as committed to improving education by being innovative and inspiring as we are elsewhere.”