I went back to school yesterday. Yesterday was the first of this year's Enterprise Days at the Robert Smyth Academy in Market Harborough. I was there between 1984 and 1987, doing my CSEs and O Levels. It was strange but lovely to be back in my old school, and great fun working with the business students there.
After a rousing assembly to get us fired up and ready to take on the day, we split into groups with a teacher and an advisor/mentor in each classroom. ( I was lucky to pull double duties, as one advisor couldn't make it, which meant flitting between two rooms!)
The challenge was to create a music festival, make promotional material, and to design and create a prototype of a product to sell at it. The team with the most votes at the end of the day won. Simple? Well, not quite so simple...
As mentioned earlier, every room had an advisor in it. The advisors were all from businesses large and small. Our role was to help, advise and encourage the students, being able to give them real world advice and experience. It was also interesting to see who was being most competitive, with students, teachers and advisors all wanting to win.
First task of the day was name and theme the festival, after which, teams split up into design and product development. My role was to help and encourage the students in these tasks. Personally, I think my rooms had an unfair advantage here, as I was the only creative (by profession) advisor. Students were coming up with some really good ideas, and I helped coming up with name ideas and developing products. I also helped students to think about product purpose and appearance, price and promotion. This was really good fun, with some of the teachers acted as shopkeepers. Students had to purchase resources to make prototypes, work to a budget, and be aware of unit cost and profit.
After lunch there was a little time to fine tune prototypes, then done to 'The Max' (the old gym...) to set up stalls and pitch ideas to the other teams. Each student had a token to be spent on a stall they liked most, the stall with most tokens winning the first trophy of the day. There were prizes for best pitch and an overall winner chosen by the judges (advisors included). I am very proud to say that two teams I was working with came second and third overall. I just need a first place next week!
It was fantastic witnessing students pitching their ideas and products with plenty of confidence and energy. As one of the judges, I visited every stall (about 30 in all), and was really impressed by how positive and confident they were in presenting their ideas, especially to a complete stranger. 14 year olds are usually confident with those of their own age, but an unknown adult can crumble that confidence. I was proud of how the students handled themselves, were professional, confident and most importantly, believed in what they had created. They were clearly enjoying the experience too.
After a tense judging discussion, the overall winner was decide upon. 'The Welly Fest' with their convertible wellies won overall with a great product and excellent pitch. (I was genuinely impressed with their pitch, which was clear and confident with plenty of enthusiasm.)
The first of this year's Enterprise Days was a great success. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the students and seeing their creativity and hard work paying off. It was great being back in my old school. I'm really looking forwards to doing it all over again next week, with the winners, of course!
Thanks to all at the Robert Smyth Academy for a fantastic day, especially Phillip Sullivan for organising the whole day and Helen Sawkins (teacher with one of my teams) for her support in the classroom.
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