Firms team up with schools to pass on employment skills
The cast of We Will Rock You at The Radcliffe School had professional photos taken by the Home Retail Group
SOME of the highest profile companies in Milton Keynes are teaming up with schools in the new city to help transform young lives.
Business Class is the brainchild of Business in the Community, a national organisation, and the local launch took place at Home Retail Group in Avebury Boulevard on Thursday, February 2.
David Guise, group HR director at Home Retail Group, said: “Milton Keynes is one of the fastest growing cities in the UK with a strong business infrastructure, yet in November 2011 23.6 per cent of unemployed people in Milton Keynes were 18-24 year-olds.”
Home Retail Group is the parent company of Argos, Homebase and Habitat and is one of the new city’s biggest employers with 2,500 people on the payroll.
Mr Guise said being involved in the scheme was good for the company for a number of reasons, not least because it was a great way of aiding the personal development of employees, through mentoring young people.
The key principle though is to give young people in schools a feeling that their education is relevant to their future.
Evaluation of the national scheme by Cass Business School says it is making a real impact on pupil achievement and employability.
The official launch event was told that something like 53,000 people commute into Milton Keynes for work every day.
Home Retail Group has teamed up for three years with The Radcliffe School, in Aylesbury Street West. Some 60 employees have helped including with last year’s school performance, We Will Rock You, taking pupils on a professional photo-shoot with the Argos photographers.
Radcliffe School headteacher John O’Donnell said: “I am immensely proud of our relationship with Home Retail Group. The first year has been stunningly encouraging. Aspirations have risen and needs to because these are challenging days in a challenging part of the city.”
There are some 1,063 pupils at the school, speaking 37 languages. It achieved 12 ‘outstanding’ ratings in a December 2011 Ofsted report, only two years after it went into special measures.
While The Radcliffe School has teamed up with Home Retail Group, Audi UK is working with the MK Academy and Volkswagen Financial Services is forming a working relationship with Stantonbury Campus. Construction company Wates is looking for a local secondary school partner.
Businesses and schools interested in finding out more about Business Class in Milton Keynes should contact Shirin Welham by email at shirin.welham@bitc.org.uk.
Across the country there are about 150 company-school partnerships, supported by 118 businesses in 26 clusters.
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