Local Business Support
for Every Child
a Reader and Every Child Counts
The Every Child a Chance Trust has launched a new programme called Local Business Support, to encourage local businesses in each community to support schools involved in Every Child Counts and Every Child a Reader, to increase the number of teaching places available to children, involve business volunteers, and provide additional resources.
Local businesses near Every Child Counts and Every Child a Reader schools are being asked to become sponsors of those schools and provide up to £35,000 over three years to benefit their local community. For more information on how to become a sponsor, or to discuss your interest in sponsorship, please contact us.
Business Benefits
For corporate sponsors, the programme provides:
- a unique opportunity for stakeholder engagement and community investment at the local level, particularly in disadvantaged communities
- increased coherence for existing, sometimes fragmented, volunteering activity. The Local Business Support project will bring together a number of different elements (providing a governor, providing volunteer help for children; in some cases contributing to the teaching of financial literacy) which together will build a strong, sustainable relationship with the local school
- partnership with an education-based charity that has the expertise to manage the complexities of establishing and evaluating the impact of volunteer programmes in schools.
It will also deliver improved recruitment and reduced employee absence by providing opportunities for employees who volunteer to learn new skills, meet new people and achieve work/life balance. A key element of sponsorship will be opportunities for employees to mentor and coach pupils. Volunteers will be paired with children exiting the Numbers Count and Reading Recovery programmes, and help them maintain the gains they have made by reading with them and playing maths games and reinforcing concepts taught in class.
Finally, the local business support programme provides business development opportunities, by strengthening the communities where the business has a presence, and promoting positive perceptions of the business amongst current potential clients (parents of children involved, school staff and governors) and amongst the primary aged children who are the potential clients of the future.
Benefits for Schools
For schools, the project aims to establish an infrastructure that will enable a minimum of 150 schools initially to secure local business sponsorship. This will impact on 10,800 children directly and 45,000 indirectly over the three years. It will increase the number of teaching places available to children, involve business volunteers, and provide additional resources. Additionally, it will:
- Give primary schools the tools and confidence they need to successfully approach businesses
- Engage business professionals who can contribute valuable skills to staff and students
- Further embed the value of strong literacy and numeracy education into the wider community
- Help teachers bring curriculum to life and add to educational experience of young people
- Provide a model for business engagement with numeracy and literacy teaching in primary school
Business support at a local level will not only impact on the numeracy, literacy and financial literacy of children in these schools but also raise children’s aspirations by providing business role models at a formative age through business volunteers.
For more information on how you can take part in the Local Business Support programme, please contact us