Tom Ravenscroft has been shortlisted for the national Social Entrepreneur of the Year award for helping 25,000 pupils every year to deal with ‘real life’ when they leave school.
The entrepreneur from Bethnal Green realised pupils were leaving school in east London without being adequately prepared for the outside world.
So he set up his Enabling Enterprise in 2009 with a programme in partnership with 25 businesses helping teachers make sure pupils develop skills such as team work, turning ideas into plans, giving presentations and communicating effectively.
“We work with more than 25,000 students a year,” Tom explained. “This is the beginning of a journey to transform the preparation that children receive in school for ‘real life’—we aim to reach 100,000 youngsters a year by 2017.”
Tom is among five finalists with the chance of winning the £10,000 national award who are about to graduate from Lloyds Bank Group’s 2012-13 Social Entrepreneurs programme.
His social enterprise supported 21,000 students in 2012-13 alone, involving 1,000 teachers in 140 schools up and down the country.
Online voting for the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ runs until October 7 at www.the-sse.org/SEYA, the winner to be announced on October 25.
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