56 The Barber Academy

Australia’s Way Cool Barber School

BY REX A.C. SILVER

Gareth Philpott’s vision for what their students experience, learn and achieve at their institution, is a meticulously well thought out program that culminates from the benefits of his years of experience in the Registered Training Organisation trade, across many varied industries, his 6 years in Barbering, and decades of experience in the Hair and Hair Education industry alongside Dee Thomas, his co-owner and mum!

Couple this with his enthusiasm for the Barbering and Men’s Grooming Industry and Gareth’s’ tendency to think outside the box in terms of how he gathers the all the information and skill sets both practical and theoretical he feels their students need to complete their courses at The Barber Academy.

And we see not only a crack team of highly skilled in-house educators but also many specialists from all facets of the industry involved in order to achieve his goal of giving their students the best start they can. The results are speaking for themselves with the numbers of Barber Academy Alumni successfully being placed in employment upon graduating. Currently only located in Brisbane and on The Gold Coast…but not for long.

Let’s start at the beginning, tell us about yourself and your background, and the journey that lead to you opening The Barber Academy.

I am the Co-owner of The Barber Academy Australia with my Mam Dee Thomas. Dee has 40+ years’ experience in the hair industry, and 20+ years in Education. Dee was headhunted by a Hair & Beauty college in Australia in 2006 which was when we moved to Australia from Wales in the UK.

My pathway into Education started through the fitness industry then led to Business and Management as well as teaching the TAE. We both have compliance and teaching backgrounds which led us into opening up our own RTO in 2015. We first started off with Childcare, Business, Hairdressing and Beauty courses due to Dee’s background in the industry.

In 2016 Dee was diagnosed with double pneumonia which was a huge hit to not only me but to the company. I had no previous experience in the hair industry apart from being brought up in salons with my mum. When Mum was in hospital I decided to give barbering a whirl. This was outside of my normal 9-5 job, something which would take my mind off my mum’s illness as well as speaking to my mates about my mum but in a way I felt safe while butchering their hair as I had watched one you tube video on barbering ha-ha.

As we could only visit my mum at certain times I had managed to put some photos and videos of the haircuts I was doing to show my mum in the hospital. I was really enjoying cutting hair, but I had no idea what I was doing.

My mum broke down crying when I showed her the photos of the hair I was doing (Not too sure if this was because they were awful haircuts or the fact that I was following after her profession) Sadly my hair career was cut short due to not being able to study on the Gold Coast, unless I was in an apprenticeship which at the time was not an option for me.

I had texted my Mum while she was in her hospital bed saying the dream was over and I was going back to compliance.

One week later, I had gone to visit my Mum in hospital again. Amazingly while she was fighting an illness which could have potentially killed her, she had come up with the business name The Barber Academy as well as drawn our logo and put Barbering on our scope.

Thankfully with my Mum making a full recovery since her illness, we have gone from strength to strength, we hired Stacy Fernandes (AMBA Best Men’s Collection “Classic” 2022) who transformed our Barbering to the next level. To have someone who has been there and done that in the Barber Industry was a massive boost to the company.

Gareth Philpott

Gold Coast Campus

How hard was this process for you to bring to a reality?

To be honest with our background in compliance and running RTOs this process for us was not really an issue. We understood why the procedures and processes are there. My job before I started cutting hair was a partner compliance officer for 7 different RTOs, which I learnt so much from. How RTOs are run all the way from Marketing through to the student journey and graduating. As I have learnt from many people in other industries, It is not just the hair and education industry which have to jump through hoops so it’s something we have to accept. I know to avoid some of these hoops more private education and upskilling has come in to play in Australia which I think is fantastic.

The main difference between the RTO world and the upskilling would be the flexibility around the upskilling. This is one thing which we are getting more and more of. All of our educators also do Private training outside of their RTO positions. I’m sure our educators will agree the train the trainer program by Area Academy (AMBA Special Recognition recipient 2021) has completely changed the way that we conduct our education and has been an absolute game changer.

Brisbane Campus

The Barber Academy Team

Tell us about the courses you offer...

With The Barber Academy we offer Certificate ii In Salon Assistant which we have tailored to barbering to offer a pathway for students. We also offer Certificate iii in Barbering both as a Full Time Course and as an apprenticeship option. As well as our RPL program for the Certificate III course also.

We also offer upskilling to any Barbers or Hairdressing who would like to sharpen their skills. We also have the advantage of owning The Hair Academy Australia which teaches Cert III Hairdressing so we can tailor education for anyone in the Hair Industry. We have funding available on all of our accredited courses which we offer at The Barber Academy. It seems you go way beyond the minimum government guidelines for an RTO, and have teamed up other industry experts to share their expertise.

Can you tell us about this?

I suppose the major thing we have always done as a company is focus on our Collaborations. Teaming up with Eoin and Leigh from the Area Academy team was a huge win for us as a company. Not only do the students receive their face-to-face training from two industry experts, but each student who enrolls in our Certificate III in Barbering Full time course receives a full year subscription to The Network by Area Academy which is a huge resource for our students to receive.

We have also collaborated with probably the biggest brand in the hair industry at the moment Dyson, who provide Supersonic Hair Dryers to all of our Full Time Certificate III in Barbering students as well as our full time Cert III in Hairdressing students. We have also teamed up with brands such as Excellent edges who will provide scissors for the students and mannequin heads, as well as Crispy Club which is a local Gold Coast product who are looking to put the fun back into the industry.

As well, we are teaching the students the systems and procedures to upskill their shaving and facial services, specific to using the VITAMAN range. This is one of our biggest focuses for 2023, our students having as many resources as possible and showing off this amazing industry that we all love. We have been extremely fortunate to have top class trainers at The Barber Academy. As I mentioned previous Stacy Fernandes was our first Barber trainer, to see Stacy grow in the industry as well as become a fantastic trainer makes Mum and myself so proud.

We make a big deal that we always want our trainers to be as current as possible. Every one of our trainers still works in the industry because we want our students learning exactly what is happening in the industry today, and, in the future. Stacy completing a collection and becoming a finalist for the Australian Modern Barber Awards sums up how extremely talented our team are… (up-dating at time of print, we can confirm Stacy Fernandes indeed won Best Men’s Collection ‘Classic’ at the AMBA’s) as well as having 3 apprentices this year make finalists in Apprentice Collection categories, Billy Gowers AHIA Creative and Ethan Chan and Noah Rigelsford-Lockwood AMBA’s respectively. Stacy runs our Brisbane campus based in Woolongabba, and also teaches our Brisbane based barber apprentices.

On the Gold Coast, we have 3 trainers Michelle Henderson who is from England in the UK who again has taken our team to the next level. Michelle has a hairdressing background and moved into Barbering. The students absolutely love Michelle. We often have students from the previous college Michelle used to work at, come into our Gold Coast campus and visit Michelle and thank her for what she has done for them.

I also train at the Gold Coast campus myself; I like to keep on the tools as I have always believed that I have no right to tell my team what to do if I have not done it previously or are currently doing it. I have been in the Hair Industry now for 6 years and I still cut every single weekend out of Zeppelin Barber Shop in Mermaid Beach where I am constantly learning because of their amazingly talented team. Our newest edition to the team is Charlotte Noble, a huge coup for the college.

Charlotte was previously the head trainer at The London School of Barbering and decided to take a little trip across the globe and move to Australia. Charlotte will be a great asset in helping us transform this industry even more by giving our students such quality education, we are so excited to have Charlotte with us. Our main focus when education is making sure that the students are as confident and capable as possible before taking that leap into the industry.

Because of the way our Academy is set up… we do run the Academy like a shop, so the students are also having that on-the-job experience before stepping foot into a real barber shop business environment. As I mentioned previously all of our trainers still work in the industry so they understand the requirements that the industry needs.

Gareth Cutting

Area Academy Training

Dyson Day

Area Academy Training

Tell us about expanding...

Yes probably our biggest talking point in the last month or so is our expansion into NSW, Sydney to be exact of course, details are still under wraps for now. This is, however, something we have been working on for the past 18 months, so we super excited about that. We receive messages every day asking when we are opening up in other capitals, Sydney, and Melbourne especially.

We think there is a big need for our specific brand of training to be out there and as we are very industry focused; we take these requests seriously. Along with the Sydney plans in place, we have recently just signed up for a new location on the Gold Coast. We have been trying to get this space for the past 5 years. It was always our dream to do something like this and we have finally managed to get it over the line. You will have to keep an eye on our social media and website to see the update on the new Gold Coast location as its still top secret at the moment ;)

New Brisbane Intake

Newly Qualified Barber Paige Bottriell

Apprentice Billy Gowers Educating at Barber Hub