Enterprise Days

Year 9 Enterprise Challenge Days

Budding entrepreneurs in Year 9 welcomed a host of local ‘dragons’ to their Enterprise Challenge Days this term. This Dragons’ Den style event involved all year 9 students spending a full day exploring new business ideas and competing with other teams. This year, dragons were from enterprises including Monty’s Chippy, Dale Electrical, Belle Engineering, Ornua Foods and Astra Zeneca or were representatives from education and training such as Buxton & Leek College, Entrust Support Services, Newcastle & Staffordshire Colleges Group and Achieve Training. The dragons shared their business expertise with the students and supported the teams throughout the day.

The first challenge was for teams to construct a tower from spaghetti and marshmallows, with mixed success! Teams were then presented with the ‘Tenner’ challenge: starting with only £10, make as much money as possible in one month. Helped and encouraged at every stage by their dragons, students researched their idea before creating a business proposal, logo, poster and a website article. The challenge also involved forecasting likely costs and pricing, together with a prediction of any problems they may encounter. At the end of the day, the teams pitched their proposals to the dragons in the ‘dragon’s den’ (or our meeting room!).

Every year, our students never fail to impress with their innovation and effort, with a real focus this year on supporting social issues. The winning proposals were ‘Reuse Westwood College’ (a renting out school facilities) and ‘Clean & Company’ (cleaning service for the elderly that aims to stop loneliness). As always, the event was a great success, thanks to the commitment and enthusiasm of all visiting dragons but more importantly the energy and creativity of our Year 9 students.