A group of young home educated students visit Agfa Graphics with their parents

On Monday, 17 September 2018 Agfa Graphics hosted a visit of 9 adults and 11 young people who are educated at home.

Graham Cooper (AGFA) made a presentation about manufacturing in the city and specifically about the Agfa factory and the products they make. Following this, the group was split into two and given an extensive tour of the manufacturing plant, during which both the parents and young people asked many intelligent questions which we hopefully answered adequately!

On return to the meeting room there was a final Q&A session. Kate, the organiser from the home educators' side, sent the following follow up message.

"Thank you so much for our wonderful visit yesterday. We really enjoyed it and my sons found it very inspiring and learned a huge amount. Everyone who came echoed this and some parents contacted me afterwards to reiterate it. Every aspect of the visit was fascinating and it was a privilege to get the benefit of your experience in the sector and in your specific plant. Your presentation was highly relevant to the young people and they were really engaged with the tour and the informal Q&As too".

When the Leeds Manufacturing Festival was first conceived, none of us thought about reaching out to those young people educated outside of the school system

This omission was corrected when Kate, a parent of home educated young boys, contacted us via the website requesting to take part in the Leeds Manufacturing Festival. Following email dialogue, Kate made contact with other home educators and a visit was arranged to Agfa Graphics.

We at Agfa sincerely hope we have inspired some manufacturers of the future.