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Big Tick winner in 2006

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BT - Communication Skills for Life

Merrill Lynch Investing in Young People Award 2006 supported by the Department for Education and Skills

Although there are more ways then ever to communicate BT believes we are losing the ability to have effective, meaningful conversations about things that matter. BT is on a mission to raise awareness of the importance of interpersonal communication, to work with teachers to support their efforts, and to campaign for communication to play a more central role in education.

Processes

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions serving more than 20 million business and residential customers with more than 30 million exchange lines, as well as providing network services to other licensed operators in Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific.

BT’s Education programme believes the skill of dialogue should be taught to every pupil and BT has directly invested over £9.22 million over the past three years and provided in-kind support of approx £11.7 million. Special provisions are made to ensure that these resources reach those pupils in schools that are economically disadvantaged or those pupils with learning difficulties or disabilities.

The skill of dialogue includes interpersonal communication that is genuinely two-way, thoughtful, open-minded, respectful and purposeful.

The Education Programme has an effective management framework and provides free communication-skills resources to schools (DVD’s, Online Activities, lesson plans, drama workshops etc.). BT volunteers, who give their time for free to schools, make a valuable contribution and are involved in an annual conference to provide opportunities for further training and development. BT sets specific targets and clear objectives to help quantify the process.

Teacher feedback is constantly used to improve programmes. Using a range of tools, BT keeps its range of stakeholders and partners informed.

Benefits

Although the primary purpose of the program is to benefit young people, BT benefits from the Education Programme in several ways:

Providing opportunities for staff to develop their skills
By gaining expertise and insight into the education sector, enabling BT to improve its commercial offering to the education
By helping to differentiate BT from other telecommunications and IT providers in a highly positive way contributing to business wins
By contributing to a ‘feel good’ factor that makes customers and staff feel positive about buying from or working for BT.

Impact

It is estimated that in the last year, more than 260,000 students benefited from at least one element of the program including improvement in cognitive functioning, getting more out of learning, developing a more positive attitude towards school, exploring issues that directly affect them, and developing self-confidence and self-esteem.

Many volunteers do more than help improve speaking and listening, transferring some business skills to students whether by setting us a website, learning how to use PowerPoint or helping governing bodies with strategic planning.