On the last day of term a group of our Year 9 and 10 girls took part in a Beauty Workshop, organised by Manchester United Foundation Hub Officer, Adele Howarth.

Helen Quayle, CEO of Whitefield based company Laser HQ, visited our academy to deliver an inspirational talk to our group about starting her business from scratch and building to the successful operation she has today with four branches. The girls found the afternoon very inspiring and maintained continuous engagement throughout the entire workshop.

Helen has achieved so much and in October 2022 won the 2022 ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ award at The Enterprise Vision Awards. These annual awards recognise and celebrate outstanding ‘female entrepreneurship’ in the North West. The award, sponsored by The University of Central Lancashire, applauded Helen for starting and building her businesses from nothing, hitting a £1m turnover and leading the way with key campaigns to raise awareness of health issues for women so, as you can imagine she was a great inspiration to our students.

I’ve learnt how to be passionate about my work because Helen has showed us from where she started and how much she was able to build herself up. She taught me that it’s not just about laser hair removal but about her clients status. Her company welcomes her clients and makes them welcome and comfortable as much as possible. She is a very confident woman and proved to us that women don’t need men. If I was to look up to someone as an influencer, I would choose Helen because she answered so many questions that I needed to be answered.

Swesn, Year 9 student