Working with disadvantaged young people

‘Volunteers from Freshfields have been visiting our school since 1999. With their enthusiasm, help and encouragement many of our pupils have improved their literacy and numeracy and chess skills. Perhaps even more importantly, it has helped to motivate the children, improved their communication skills, given them new confidence and a different perspective on life which we hope they will carry with them as they move through school and into the world of work.’
Ann O’Reilly, head teacher, Redlands Primary School

In London, we organise team activities, such as supervising children on school trips, and engage in pro bono work with the Independent Panel for Special Education Advice, providing help and support to families who feel their children are not having their special educational needs appropriately met by the local education authority. We also support a variety of volunteering projects, including the following.

  • Helping children at Redlands Primary School in Tower Hamlets with their reading and number skills, and playing chess with 11 year olds to encourage strategic thinking.
  • Mentoring GCSE students at Haggerston School for Girls in Hackney. This includes practice interviews and CV help. Other volunteers aim to improve GCSE students’ French and Spanish language skills by participating in our Virtual Paris or Virtual Madrid events in the run-up to exams or as language partners.
  • Working with our future joiners at BPP Professional Education law school to improve pupils’ understanding of the law, democracy and human rights as part of our StreetLaw project at Haggerston.
  • Mentoring UK Career Academy Foundation students who are aiming for a career in business. We also host careers days, for the 16-19 year olds, such as our day-long annual Introduction to Financial Law for students.
  • Giving interview practice to pupils at Cardinal Pole school in Hackney who hope to go to either Oxford or Cambridge universities.
  • Providing work experience for students at the UK Career Academy Foundation, Haggerston School for Girls and Cardinal Pole School. In 2008, we will be providing work experience through the Sutton Trust’s Pathways to Law initiative, which is designed to attract fresh talent to the legal profession by targeting students from state schools who will be the first in their family to attend university and whose parents are in non-professional occupations. We expect to host five people through this scheme in 2008.
  • Being a school governor with the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop.
  • Mentoring new teachers as part of our sponsorship of Teach First, a charity that trains, places and supports top graduates working in challenging schools. We will be relaunching our mentoring scheme for head teachers in Tower Hamlets and Hackney in 2008.

In 2006/7, in association with Brent Council and The Learning Trust, which has responsibility for education in Hackney, we hosted the launch and graduation of the Black Leadership programme for 150 pupils from schools in these areas. The programme aims to equip young black students from disadvantaged areas with the skills and motivation to make better personal and career choices.

Having built excellent and popular volunteering programmes at both Haggerston and Redlands schools, we plan to deepen our partnerships with these schools over the coming years, in keeping with the government’s encouragement that all schools should have a business partner.

Our approach to working with young people is influenced by our commitment to promoting diversity and our belief that improving the skills of young people is fundamental to sustaining a dynamic economy.

Business Action on Education

Principal consultant Barry O’Brien leads our schools-based activities, representing us on Business in the Community’s Business Action on Education leadership team. We also seek to encourage more employers to get involved in supporting young people by being actively engaged in the National Number Partners Consortium, Teach First and the UK Career Academy Foundation. Partner Simon Hall is on the advisory board of the UK Career Academy Foundation. We provide financial support to these organisations and the Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership (EBP), Inspire (Hackney’s EBP) and the City Solicitors’ Educational Trust.

‘I have been involved with the UK Career Academy Foundation since it started in 2001. The programme engages businesses with schools and sixth form colleges and has been a phenomenal success, raising the aspirations of young people, very often from challenged backgrounds, from schools and colleges in some of the most difficult areas of the country. Some 400 companies, including our own, are now supporting the programme in over 150 schools across the country, offering visits, six week paid internships, mentoring support, guru lectures and advice. The difference we are making to the lives of these young people, in terms of creating confident individuals who are equipped to deal with sophisticated working environments and obtain and perform jobs at a level far beyond their original expectations, is truly inspiring.’
Simon Hall, partner, and trustee and advisory board member of the UK Career Academy Foundation

Find out more about what we are doing in developing and reaching new talent as part of our diversity programme.