A classroom resources provider has expanded into new premises after seeing business boom during lockdown.
Teacher’s Pet has relocated from an office at Burslem Enterprise Centre, in Stoke-on-Trent, to a new 1,400 sq ft base inside Newcastle-under-Lyme's Fellgate Court.
The move follows a recruitment drive which has seen the business expand its workforce to a team of eight in the last six months – a major step towards the company’s aim to have 10 employees by the end of the year.
Company co-founder Jay Loftus said: “It has been a crazy year for everyone but we are so lucky because we have done really well.
“When lockdown happened, we tried to focus on what we could do to help teachers and children who have had to adapt to home-learning and I’m pleased to say that it has been incredibly successful; the free content and home-learning packs that we produced received more than half-a-million downloads – and we have gone from strength-to-strength on the back of that.”
Teacher’s Pet was founded in 2010 by married couple Jay and Christina Loftus to provide downloadable learning and teaching resources for primary schools across the world.
The pair started off operating from their home in Newcastle-under-Lyme before moving to a small office in Burslem.
But since April they have outgrown their former offices and taken on four members of staff – including a former teacher – who have been helping to ‘flood’ the Teacher’s Pet website with new content and resources.
The company’s new office boasts main office space and a creative corner as well as a lounge area, kitchen and a snack shop.
Jay said: “Having new staff means we are able to provide additional content and one of the big things for us at the moment is wellbeing. We have been able to produce content around children’s mental health and it has been very popular. We have also partnered with another company called Teach Rex, to bring their huge, life-like dinosaurs into schools for workshops.
“Schools are having to really focus on the core subjects at the moment to allow children to catch-up on what they may have missed, so being able to provide creative content like this gives both teachers and children a bit of light relief and something to get excited about.”
He added: “We are really looking forward to the next few months, we have got loads of ideas and now that we have a proper base we have some real opportunities for further expansion.
“At the moment we are all back in the office and are able to socially-distance, but once the restrictions start to lift we want to form ‘pods’ so we can work more collaboratively.
“It all feels very real now. We have taken it to the next level and we are excited to see what the future holds.
“This time 12 months ago, it was just me and Christina in a small office in Burslem; so to be able to go from that to having a team of people in a 1,400 sq ft office is amazing.”
Joseph Parsonage, director at Teach Rex, is looking forward to an ‘exciting’ future with Teacher's Pet.
He said: “Before our ‘Teach Rex’ journey, as teachers, we were frequent users of the Teacher's Pet website in our own classrooms and it is a privilege to be able to work alongside them to create resources for schools.
“The dinosaur resources they have created are engaging, purposeful and will no doubt impact children’s learning across the country. We couldn’t thank the Teachers Pet Team enough and we look forward to an exciting partnership creating more resources in the future.”
