Eleven aspiring young plumbers have gained 6022 and 6032 City & Guilds plumbing certificates with help from The Princes’ Trust.
The young plumbing enthusiasts took their first steps towards a plumbing qualification and walked away with the certificates after graduating from the first three week 'Get into Building Services' course initiated by Apprenticeship Training (ATL). The students were given a complete home study plumbing course, donated by the UK's plumbing training provider, Train 4 Trade Skills.

The course will train them to be fully qualified plumbers and includes hands-on workshop training back at ATL, book-based theory and the UK's first virtual reality plumbing training which can be undertaken in a student's own time.

The trainees were part of an initiative between ATL, Train 4 Trade Skills and the Prince's Trust, which operate a national 'Get into' training programme to provide young people with intensive training of at least a week, in a work environment, in fields such as sport, construction, logistics, cooking and customer services.

This is the first time a 'Get into Building Services' project has been run.

Apprenticeship Training's managing director, Nick Hayward worked with The Prince's Trust to set up the three-week plumbing taster course which will be offered at all ATL's centres across the UK.

Prince's Trust selected the participants, while ATL gave their tutors' time, premises and materials to enable the scheme to happen and home learning course provider Train 4 Trade Skills supported the initiative with eleven home study courses, worth more than £60,000.

'We were overwhelmed by the response from young people wanting to try out the plumbing course when we advertised the local 'Get into Plumbing' project,' said Sarah Kidd, programme executive for The Prince's Trust.

She added: 'We had to stop interviewing potential trainees when the numbers topped 43. From these, 23 potential trainees came to the taster day, 12 were selected to take part in the scheme at ATL's premises. The rest will take the course in May.

To qualify for a place on the course, the students had to be between 16 and 25 years old, job ready and be unemployed, a youth offender, an educational under achiever or be a care leaver.

After receiving their certificates in a graduation ceremony in Hedge End, in the presence of representatives from ATL's board of directors and the Prince's Trust, several students came to the podium to thank ATL tutor Luke Ranger.

Student Jason Bath said 'On behalf of all of us, we want to thank Luke for taking the time and having the patience to put up with us. Without his training methods we wouldn't have all passed as we have done. We've all thoroughly enjoyed the three weeks here at ATL'.

ATL offers workshop space at Hedge End near Southampton for trainees who want to become plumbers, electricians or gas engineers.

The company will now offer further 'Get into' courses and plans to invest more than £100,000 in the scheme during the next 12 months to help young Prince's Trust trainees take up the challenge to become qualified plumbers, electricians and property maintenance engineers. Those interested in future courses should contact the Prince's Trust on 0800 842 842.