Withywood Community School
Community Case Study
Withywood Community School's Conversion to a new City Academy
Withywood is an edge-of-town estate in South Bristol with long standing social and economic problems and high levels of unemployment and crime. Withywood Community School has been in a state of decline for some years with exam results and attendance levels well below the national and Bristol averages.
The Society of Merchant Venturers, a charitable organisation based in Bristol which already runs schools in the city, and the University of Bristol are jointly sponsoring WCS to convert to a City Academy – The Merchants' Academy. New buildings are being erected on the school grounds and the new Academy will be opened to pupils in September 2008.
Burges Salmon has pledged a five-year package of revenue support for co-curricular and extra-curricular activities to help the school during and after the process of converting to a City Academy. In addition to the financial support, Burges Salmon is working with the school to develop the programme of activities, in a combination designed to get the most social benefit out of our connection with the school and improve the life-prospects of the pupils, particularly with regard to employability.
We are currently working with WCS prior to conversion and have started a pilot scheme of mentoring and tutoring year 11 GCSE students. This involves Burges Salmon staff attending one-to-one tuition sessions, focusing on maximising the potential scores at GCSE in the summer 2007 examinations.
As WCS approaches conversion to the Merchants' Academy, we envisage that a range of other projects will be developed involving visits, exchanges, careers related advice, citizenship support and other projects.
"There has been a tremendously enthusiastic reaction from staff at Burges Salmon to getting involved with the various proposed schemes and we only see this growing over the next few years."
– John Smith, Partner, Burges Salmon