Select Committee on Education and Employment Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence

Annex 3

SCHOOL BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS SUPPORTING PUPILS' LEARNING

  1.  Business can influence the ways in which young people are taught and learn; they can help to prepare young people for adult and working life. In this context businesses provide support for schools in a range of ways, not just financially but through activities such as:

—  work experience placements;

—  curriculum support materials;

—  teacher placements;

—  mentoring;

—  school governors;

—  employee volunteers.

  2.  Business involvement adds value to what is going on in the classroom by providing work-based learning and showing how the National Curriculum can be made more relevant to the needs of young people. The Department is keen to encourage more businesses to help support education, at national and local level, to identify and spread best practice and to facilitate school business partnerships.

  3.  Many companies, be they multi-nationals or small local firms, want to support schools and work in partnership with them. Their reasons for doing so can be very different, ranging from corporate responsibility or image, recruitment, staff development to marketing. The Department believes that it is best left to schools themselves to judge what form/level of business support is appropriate to the needs of their pupils' and teachers'.

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Prepared 29 June 2000