My story is somewhat similar to paul.m's. I left school with barely any qualification as not surprising later in life (when I 'd learned to read school league tables) I found out my school was by far the worst in the borough. I could barely read or write but I did have a couple of much older friends one of whom called me when I'd not yet turned 16 and asked if I was able to do works such as labouring, painting, plastering and the like to which I replied yes as any job meant the world to me. Little did I know that the person I'd be working for happened to be an electrician but doing general building work in his brother-in-law's house. What's more I later found out he was the brother of my friend who got me a place with him in the first place though they were worlds apart in character so I couldn't have guessed. I stayed with him for around 4 years straight but unfortunately I'd not taken out an apprenticeship so when I finally did fall out with him all I had was the experience with not a single paper to my name. From then on it was a case of doing bits-and-pieces around (random jobs) and getting back with him for short periods. I finally decided to go college to try and re-school myself and spent good 6 years or so in college on a variety of courses, including English language and literature, politics, and philosophy at A level. I also attempted a couple of access courses too buy sadly nearly all of those came to nothing as I failed to achieve a single upper pass grade. By then I'd chosen to settle for an office based job as I didn't deem electrics to be conducive to studying as I'd be strolling into the class full of dust and knackered out whereas in an office you'd be reading, writing, and having formal meeting during the day and evening college would simply be an extension of that. In this period I restricted electrical work to friends and family and by which time part P was being introduced and the way I saw it was either I needed several thousand pounds for a crash course or several years in the state college route but really had neither as by now I was in the wife and kids life territory. I did a few dead end jobs when the going got tough and even signed up for IT training which, once qualified, I'd be offered work and after a year's service my training fees (£4000) would be paid off but the company went under (or was a scam in the first place) and it left me £4000 out of pocket which I owed to my mum of all people! During this time I'd taken voluntary redundancy from a removal company where I worked as an administrator hopeful I'd be entering the IT industry soon and when the IT prospects diminished I really had nowhere to turn as at times there were something in the order of 500 applicants for a single administrative position! By this time I'd also developed a hatred for the way things were going in the country with the recession with so little people doing real jobs and me being one of them as I worked for 3 charities during this time, one of which was the worst job of my life where I had to stop people on the street and ask them to sign up to a particular charity. On the one hand I was proud to have a job but on the other it was taken away from me with the institutionalised begging. In the end it took some clever planning and getting the right sum of cash in order to go for the independent college route which I did last September and I now have 2330 L2 and 3, 17[SUP]th[/SUP] Ed, Part P, PAT and am in the process of doing 2356 and 2391. The college stuff came naturally and thank God I excelled in nearly every area. I took up the self employment route a couple of years ago now and pulled in a talented mature student who done the level 2 with me and here I am.
