A decade of opening doors: how Deloitte volunteers support pupils at Swanlea School

For ten years, pupils at Swanlea School in Tower Hamlets have benefited from opportunities and experiences delivered through our partnership with Deloitte. In this story, volunteer School Relationship Managers Laura and Nikita share how sustained support, from reading programmes to careers workshops, is helping pupils build confidence, develop new skills and explore future pathways.

Nikita: Swanlea is a secondary school with sixth form, based in Whitechapel. One of its distinctive features is the gender ratio – the school tends to have a significantly higher number of boys than girls, partly because several girls-only schools are located nearby.

The school also has a high proportion of Bangladeshi Muslim students, so cultural moments like Ramadan and Eid are very much part of the rhythm of school life.

Laura: In terms of challenges, funding is the big one. Swanlea is in Tower Hamlets, and like many schools in the borough, it operates with limited resources. That also reflects the financial reality of many of the families it serves – there's very little scope for parental contribution to fund additional activities.

Other schools might take it for granted that they can draw on family money for trips or enrichment, but Swanlea doesn't have that option. So, everything has to be found from within an already stretched budget.

Supporting pupils throughout school

Laura: We try to engage students all the way from Year 7 through to sixth form. In the lower years, we run a reading partners programme for students who need support getting their reading levels up, and a book club for more advanced readers.

We also run a coding club and a girls' network – that latter is particularly relevant given the gender imbalance at the school. The school creates all-boys forms in every year group to make sure girls aren't spread too thinly across predominantly male classes, and the girls’ network complements that.

For Years 12 and 13, we run BrightStart (Deloitte’s apprenticeship scheme) and apprenticeship workshops, invite them into the Deloitte offices for full-day sessions, and attend the school's annual careers fair where we talk to students about early careers opportunities at Deloitte.

Nikita: Just last week we hosted Year 12 students at our London office over two days. We ran sessions on AI and financial literacy in partnership with HSBC, and we spent time in the afternoon talking through careers, apprenticeships, and how to build a strong CV.

What made it meaningful this year was receiving feedback directly from the students, not just their teachers.

Students shared that the sessions had helped them with their confidence, communication, public speaking, and teamwork.

Several said the CV tips and the conversations about apprenticeships were the most valuable part of the interaction.

One thing we've also noticed is that students who are quite reserved at the start of the day tend to open up as the hours go on. By the afternoon, the sessions are far more interactive – and that shift is something we see every year.

A nice example of long-term impact: we had to pause the coding club for a while after the lead volunteer moved on. The school got back in touch to say the students had genuinely missed it and wanted it back. That kind of feedback means a lot. We've now found new volunteers and it's set to restart in September.

Building confidence, skills and future ambitions

Nikita: For the students, the feedback we consistently hear is around confidence, communication, and public speaking – skills they might not have had as many chances to develop otherwise.

Students leave with a clearer picture of what career pathways look like beyond the ones they might have grown up hearing about.

They can mention their experience with Deloitte in personal statements, university interviews, and job applications – and that's genuinely valuable.

Laura: Volunteers get just as much out of it. We go in thinking we're doing something for the students, but people (and sometimes whole teams) come back year after year to volunteer again saying they’ve learnt so much in the process.

There are real skills involved: facilitation, communication, working with people outside your usual environment. And it's a chance to build connections with colleagues in a completely different way to the day job. It's not a one-way street.

Why long-term partnerships matter

Laura: Swanlea is a good example of why longevity matters. We've been working with them for around ten years now, and the relationship has shifted from something short-term – where you show up, deliver something, and leave – to something much more embedded. We're a resource they can draw on. Communication is easy and free flowing. We don't have to rebuild trust every year.

That continuity also means some students have engaged with us from Year 7 all the way through to sixth form. They might have taken part in a reading programme in their first year and then attended a Dragon's Den-style workshop in Year 12.

It's the sort of access that students from more privileged backgrounds might get naturally, through family networks or contacts in professional environments.

That sustained exposure makes a real difference – and we're trying to provide that same exposure to students who wouldn't otherwise have it.

On the measurable side: with the reading programme, we could actually track students' reading ages before and after the programme. They came in at one level and left Year 7 at a higher one. That kind of impact carries through into everything else they do. And at the other end of the scale, the book club pushed the stronger readers further – exposing them to texts beyond the standard curriculum and helping them think more broadly about the world.

Some families in areas like Tower Hamlets might only think of careers in terms of a few well-known professions – law or medicine. A firm like Deloitte offers something much wider than that.

When students can see the range of paths available – and hear directly from people who've taken different routes – it genuinely broadens what they think is possible for them.

Making a lasting impact

Laura: I'd encourage other firms and professionals to get involved. It's genuinely rewarding, and I think once you've done it, you keep coming back.

Nikita: I started doing this kind of volunteering when I was based in the Deloitte Nottingham office, and when I moved to London I carried it forward. The experiences have been different but equally meaningful.

If you're on the fence, just try it – you'll get more out of it than you expect.

Helping every child fulfil their potential

For 20 years, Deloitte and Teach First have helped young people believe in what’s possible. Read more stories involving colleagues, pupils and volunteers whose lives have been changed through the power of opportunity.

Read more about the partnership