Bristol-headquartered law firm Burges Salmon has become the sixth major employer in the city to join Business Class, a Government-backed education programme led by Business in the Community (BITC), the responsible business network.
Business Class aims to create effective and mutually beneficial partnerships between businesses and secondary schools facing challenging circumstances.
Companies signed up to Business Class provide a three-year package of free support to their partnered school across a range of areas which, through a detailed needs assessment process, the school has identified as most pressing. 
They also provide support on wide-ranging issues such as governorship, head teacher mentoring, change management, attendance support, employability activities and curriculum enrichment.
Other Bristol businesses signed up to the Business Class programme, BITC’s flagship education initiative, are Carillion, DAC Beachcroft, KPMG, Lloyds Corporate and Lloyds Retail.
They are partnering Abbeywood, Bristol Metropolitan, Ashton Park and Oasis Brightstowe schools.
Across the UK more than 450 schools have been involved in Business Class, supported by 1,000 businesses – a third of them small and medium-sized enterprises – benefiting 140,000 young people.
The programme ensures that students facing social disadvantage are best equipped to achieve their goals and build successful working lives by establishing relationships driven by the needs of the school as well as the priorities, resources and capacity of the business.
Burges Salmon chief people officer Robert Halton, pictured, said: “Business class is an excellent way for us to contribute to the education of people in our community and help mobilise ambitions, develop opportunities and collaborate with others.”
BITC head of community impact Tracy Rees added: “It is fantastic to have Burges Salmon on board with our Business Class programme and we look forward to announcing which local school the firm will be partnered with in the coming months.”
With the new school year approaching, BITC is calling for more Bristol businesses to establish sustainable needs-led partnerships with schools to support Bristol’s young people to build successful working lives.
For more information, visit www.bitc.org.uk/programmes/business-class
