"One in six people leave school unable to read, write and add up properly". (Leitch Review on Skills, 2008, UKCES).3.6 million children live in poverty in the UK today. How much you achieve in life should not be determined by how much your parents earn. One great teacher can change a child's life.Educational inequality in the UK is real. It’s happening here, it’s happening now and it’s preventing too many children from living the lives they could and should.We are Teach First and we believe this can change. Teach First find, train and support people to become brilliant teachers, inspiring the young people who need them the most. Along with many others, we believe that a child’s background should not limit the opportunities they have in education and in life. This will not come easily. We believe it will take a movement of leaders across society who are committed to ending educational inequality to make this vision a reality. We’ve started to see change happen, and will continue to work with our partners to make sure this continues.The link between low family income and poor educational attainment is greater in the UK than in almost any other developed country. It’s not right, it’s not fair and it can’t continue. But it doesn’t have to be this way.Teach First is an influential charity and an increasingly powerful movement founded to address this problem directly. Now in its eleventh year, it has played a part in changing the lives of thousands of young people. Teach First harnesses the energy, enthusiasm and drive of outstanding graduates and experienced professionals and equips them with leadership skills to enable inspirational teaching in schools in challenging circumstances across England and Wales. At the same time Teach First’s two-year Leadership Development Programme gives participants the skills, experience and leadership development training to excel in careers in any field.

"Inspiring Aspiration"Spire Hub brings together retired teachers and high-ability pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in order to improve attainment and choices about academic and career progression.Central Vision:"To inspire a new generation of leaders and role-models by providing additional learning and mentoring opportunities to high-ability students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds; allowing them to unleash their true potential and add real value to society, their communities and themselves."Aspirations:1. To increase the percentage of high-ability students from disadvantaged backgrounds that achieve at least 3A*/A grades at GCSE from 36% to 63% nationwide.2. To ensure that all Spire Hub students are informed about their academic and professional development.3. To facilitate experienced educators, for example retired teachers, to use their expertise to support their local communities.

"Give a year. Change the world."City Year is London's leading youth and education charity. We believe that young people can change the world, so we recruit outstanding and passionate young people for a year of community action. We serve in schools in deprived communities, acting as tutors and mentors. We tackle two of the biggest social welfare issues in the UK: educational under-attainment and youth unemployment.City Year is the only youth movement that delivers a combination of breakfast club provision, one-to-one tutoring support, enforcement of school behaviour policies and fun after-school clubs - all rolled into one.We are committed to developing the skills and confidence of the young people that join us. All of our volunteers benefit from our Leadership After City Year development programme. This includes more than 300 hours of professional training and support across the year and the opportunity to carry out work shadowing days with our corporate sponsors."Who's the next generation that is going to LEAD us and INSPIRE us... When I look out at all of the CITY YEAR CORPS MEMBERS who have been giving so much of themselves for a cause that is so much larger than themselves, I think I have an answer to that question." - President Barack Obama.

Warner Bros. Entertainment is the global leader in the Entertainment Industry, in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of creative content and their related businesses, such as feature film, TV, home entertainment and digital distribution.Filmbank Distributors Ltd is a joint venture between Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, responsible for non-theatrical distribution of library and new release feature films on behalf of a number of major studios, in over 40 international territories.I completed a one-year industrial placement at Warner Bros. Entertainment UK, working in both the Theatrical (Warner Bros. Pictures) and Non-Theatrical (Filmbank Dist.) sides of the business:• Accounts Receivable: allocating daily received payments to invoices raised• raising repayments: for payments made in error, and for closures of accounts• Dispute Management and Credit Control: resolving invoice queries by liaising with the Sales teams and exhibitors, and collecting outstanding monies for a selection of Warner Bros.’ Independent and Irish exhibitors, and FB Library debtors• preparing weekly debtors report for General Manager review• Accounts Receivable Reconciliation: weekly validation of cash received to cash postings, and clearing backlog of unallocated cash• performing the daily electronic download of all bank statements from Barclays• assisting in a stock check of Warner Bros. store items to validate / update records• raising invoices per Box Office Returns using MACCS• ad hoc billing projects and other duties as directed• providing admin support for billing and receivable team

EnterpriseMouchel Ltd [previously AccordMP] is an incorporated highways services company jointly owned by Enterprise plc and Mouchel plc that specialises in integrated highways management and maintenance. In addition to their contracts, EnterpriseMouchel deliver the Planned and Reactive Maintenance contract for the Transport for London (South).Following a four-week internship in August 2007, I was consequently offered a casual contract with the company, working in the Finance section of the Commercial team:• Credit Control: assisting the Third Party Claims Manager in the investigation and recovery of outstanding payments by liaising with customers and Insurance Companies• updating invoice records through cost capture, creating purchase orders and job orders• invoice analysis for end-of-period, creating spreadsheets to display financial information• carrying out a stock check to update/validate ledgers, invoice amounts and budgets• assisting the Quantity Surveyors in estimating construction and reproduction costs of Maintenance works on the South London network• carrying out an audit on the Health & Safety of the subcontractors [P.E.E.R process]• various ad hoc projects, dealing with a large range of people [both internally and externally]• providing admin support for the Commercial team