Careers – Year 9 Young Enterprise Day

All of Year 9 were taken off time-table and involved in a number of activities designed to develop their entrepreneurial and enterprise skills. The event was sponsored by GCHQ and coordinated by Gloucestershire First Learning Education Partnership. We had many guests from the local business community, who helped proceedings with their expertise and advice to the students. Year 9 were randomly set in teams of six and provided with an enterprise brief that involved developing some form of technological innovation that could be brought to market and sold to consumers. The Year 9’s came up with some unique, novel and creative ideas. As part of their business brief, the students had to develop specific areas, such as their marketing strategy, how they would finance their ventures and what specific resources they would need to produce their product/service. The ultimate challenge for the groups, was to ‘pitch’ their ideas and plans, in a ‘dragons den’ style presentation to judges, drawn from our Business Facilitators, who were helping on the day. This resulted in four teams being selected for the ‘Grand Final’, which was won by a team, who came up with a ‘virtual reality’ product that could enhance learning in different contexts, such as school lessons. The winning team will now represent the school in the county final that will take place next May. We thank the Gloucestershire First LEP, plus our Business advisers for all their input on the day, ensuring that it was a highly successful event.