SUPPORTED Recruitment Ltd was the creation of husband and wife team Richard and Gemma Robinson.

The couple had taught in York primary schools for 15 years and were passionate about improving both the academic and wellbeing of the city’s children.

They decided to start an educational recruitment business in September 2017 through which they could share their experience and expertise with as many of York’s teachers as possible. Their aim was to create a recruitment agency that was run by teachers which had education at the centre of everything it does. After a very successful first six months, SupportED Recruitment were in a position to expand and they brought on board Richard’s brother James who had worked in the recruitment industry for the previous 13 years.

Over the last 12 months the business has grown significantly, seeing turnover more than double. They have employed another member of the team to help with supporting teachers in York. To date they have worked with 22 schools and deployed 67 teachers.

The future looks very exciting for this new family business which hopes to win the New Business of the Year and Family Business of the Year awards.

They are already recruiting teachers for a Leeds branch and developing relationships with schools so they are ready to launch in the new academic year. They have brought on board another director, Helen Russell, who will be in charge of school relations with the Leeds school.

Richard said: “The strength of our family business is in the close relationships that we develop with our teachers and the schools they work with.

“We know that our teachers enjoy working for us. They are always positive about the relationship that they gain from working with a small family business. We know this is a very different experience in comparison to teachers registered with the larger recruitment companies.”