Mills & Reeve encourages new wave of enterprising entrepreneurs

Leading national law firm Mills & Reeve has teamed up with a Birmingham school for an exciting new business and community project

Mills & Reeve has linked up with Colmers School and Sixth Form in Rednal, for the next three years as part of the Business in the Community (BITC) Business Class programme. The Birmingham office of the national law firm is helping the school to support its students to develop relevant business skills that reflect the four pillars of the Business Class scheme: Leadership and governance, enterprise and employability, the curriculum and wider issues.

Colmers School recently launched its Social Enterprise Scheme, which involves Year 11 pupils creating viable business plans to raise money for a charity of their choice. They will then run the small business for a week and donate all proceeds to their chosen charity.

A team from Mills & Reeve attended the launch of the scheme and returned to help run a Dragons’ Den session, with each form pitching their business ideas to the panel and applying for business loans. The forms will be running their businesses in mid-February and the most enterprising ideas will be awarded prizes for their efforts.

Dawn Brathwaite, partner at Mills & Reeve, said: “We’re really excited to be working with Colmers School on this project. The pupils have really engaged with it and we’ve already seen some interesting and inventive ideas emerge. At Mills & Reeve we’re always looking for the next generation of talented people to work with and it looks like we’ve discovered some real potential entrepreneurs in Birmingham!”