Capita Hartshead employees in Sheffield will be volunteering with primary school students in a charity initiative designed to teach young people about business.

The initiative, the Southey Rave (Raising aspiration and the value of education), run by Business in the Community (BITC), was first piloted in Leeds, where it was a huge success.

The volunteers will be using a snakes and ladders board, and allocating each student a profession. As the students move around the board they will encounter snakes which discipline them for misdemeanours, such as being late or failing to work as part of a team. The ladders represent praise and could, for example, be a job promotion for working hard.

Mike Addenbrooke, chief executive officer at Capita Hartshead, said: “The idea of this game is to help children understand the links between how they behave, what they learn at school and how to get on in the workplace.

“The discipline snakes and reward ladders tie in with the school’s core values and the aim is for the children to recognise that these values must be carried over into the world of work.

“This is one of a number of initiatives our staff have been involved with in the Sheffield community. It is important to us to engage in local projects and we know that the volunteers really enjoy the time they spend working on these ventures.”

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