Andrea Lynette-Young of PQA Bury: How to Build a High-Performing Business Through Culture and Continuity
High performance in a children’s activity business doesn’t always mean opening more locations, adding more classes or chasing constant expansion.
Sometimes it looks much quieter than that. It looks like a team that stays for years, students who grow into staff, families who stay connected to the business and a culture strong enough that people want to keep being part of it.
That really stood out in my conversation with Andrea Lynette-Young, Principal of PQA Bury. Andrea has been part of PQA for more than 11 years, first taking over PQA Eastleigh before returning home to Bury and opening her own academy in 2017.
Her background spans musical theatre, television, cruise ships and live performance, but what she has built since moving into children’s activities is just as much about leadership as it is about performing arts.
Andrea is a finalist for High Performing Business of the Year at The Class Business Awards 2026, and her story is a brilliant example of how consistency, people and culture can become some of the strongest assets in a business.
From performer to principal
Andrea always knew she wanted to perform. She danced from the age of two, worked in television when she was younger, appeared in Coronation Street as a teenager and then spent years working in musical theatre and on cruise ships before eventually reaching the point where she began to think about what came next.
That next step arrived through PQA. Andrea first took over an established academy in Eastleigh, which gave her the chance to learn the operational side of the model while focusing on the creative delivery. She also valued the marketing, branding and practical support that came with the wider PQA network.
When she later returned to Bury, she was starting again from scratch, but this time with experience behind her. Nearly nine years later, PQA Bury is firmly established and heading towards its 10th anniversary.
A high-performing business is built around people
Andrea currently has a team of ten, and most of her teaching staff have been with her for eight years or more.
That kind of retention says a lot about the culture she has built.
Andrea described it simply:
“I’ve always created a culture of looking after them.”
She recognises that Saturday teaching is an extra commitment for many of the people on her team, so she tries to make the environment enjoyable and flexible while still keeping clear expectations around the role. If someone genuinely needs time off, she makes space for that, and she also keeps herself connected to teaching when needed so she never becomes too removed from the student experience.
There are some really useful lessons in that for any class business owner:
- flexibility and accountability can exist together
- people are more likely to stay when they feel valued
- long-term staff create consistency for customers
- culture is shaped by everyday decisions
- staying connected to delivery helps you lead better
Build a pathway, not just a team
One of the strongest parts of Andrea’s story is how many of her team members have progressed through the academy itself.
Several assistants were originally students. Her newest Film & Television teacher is a great example: he first attended PQA Bury as a student, then became an assistant and has now progressed into the teaching role.
Andrea actively encourages that development rather than protecting roles or making progression difficult.
As she put it:
“If you fancy this journey, support them, help them, don’t hinder.”
That mindset creates a really healthy pipeline. People can see what progression looks like because there are real examples standing beside them every Saturday.
It also gives those team members a deep understanding of the customer experience because they know what it feels like to be a student first.
Confidence can last far beyond the class
Andrea also shared one story that really captured the long-term impact of the work.
During her time at PQA Eastleigh, she worked with a teenager called Kylie who arrived extremely shy. Over time, Andrea helped draw out her confidence, and Kylie eventually took a lead role in one of PQA’s West End performances.
Years later, after Andrea had moved away, PQA posted something for National Teacher Day and invited former students to comment about teachers who had made a difference. Kylie wrote about Andrea and the impact she had had on her life.
Andrea said:
“She said, you know, I gave her the confidence to go on.”
By then, Kylie had gone on to university, but she still remembered the person who had taken a chance on her and helped her believe she could do more.
That is where the real value of children’s activity businesses sits. The service might be drama, dance, sport or music, but the impact often goes much further.
The offer is bigger than the activity
Andrea also talked about PQA’s Film & Television module, where students create a film from beginning to end. They develop the idea, write scripts, create characters, think about shot lists, costumes and locations, and learn to solve problems with the resources available to them.
That develops far more than performance skills. It builds confidence, collaboration, creativity, planning and adaptability.
It is a good reminder that the thing parents sign up for is not always the whole thing they are buying. The deeper value often sits in the skills and confidence being developed around the activity itself.
One person can become a brand within the brand
Andrea’s story gets even more interesting when you look beyond PQA Bury.
During lockdown, she began exploring opportunities in the early years market and joined Little Music Stars when it was still a very young franchise. She launched her own classes, built that business and then, in January 2026, became the franchisor of Little Music Stars herself.
She now runs PQA Bury, her own Little Music Stars classes and the wider franchise network.
Andrea summed up the relationship between those businesses really well:
“They buy into you as a person as well as the products that you’re delivering. I’m a brand within those brands.”
That is such an important point for anyone operating under a wider brand. The national name matters, but the local relationship matters too. Families often stay because they trust the person, the culture and the experience they receive week after week.
High performance can look like longevity
Andrea’s story is a useful reminder that high performance doesn’t have to mean constant expansion.
It can look like a successful single academy built steadily over almost a decade. It can look like teachers staying for eight years, students becoming assistants and assistants becoming teachers. It can look like former students coming back years later to say the experience changed something for them.
PQA Bury will celebrate its 10th birthday next year with a large anniversary production featuring some of the best moments from the academy’s first decade.
After all that time, the strongest thing Andrea has built may not simply be the academy itself. It is the community of people who have grown alongside it.
Watch the full interview
In our full conversation, Andrea shares more about her journey from performer to academy owner, how she has retained such a long-standing team, why former students are now becoming teachers and how she balances PQA with her growing role as franchisor of Little Music Stars.
👉 Watch Andrea Lynette-Young’s full finalist interview here.
Andrea is a finalist for High Performing Business of the Year at The Class Business Awards 2026.
Join us at The Class Business Live on Saturday 10 October 2026 at the National Conference Centre in Solihull for a full day of speakers, mastermind conversations, practical ideas and networking with people who genuinely understand the realities of running a class-based business.
Then from 6:00pm, we move into The Class Business Awards & Afterparty to celebrate the businesses, founders and teams making an impact across the sector. Book your ticket here.
