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Entrepreneurs launch innovative ‘city for kids’

An innovative programme that challenges youngsters to run their own city has been launched by three entrepreneurs.

Devised in the United States, Enterprise City sees children take control of their own city, make rules and discover the consequences of individual and group decisions.

The city is run by a Mayor, while the bank issues loans and the city “trades” as children try to make a profit at the end of the day.

It is initially being targeted at primary school pupils, who apply and are interviewed for various roles and then spend the day running a model city.

Aycliffe-based Enterprise England, the company that brought the programme to the UK, held successful pilot events last year.

They’ve now set up a permanent venue on the premises of Newton Aycliffe manufacturing company Ebac, on Aycliffe Business Park.

Pupils from St Mary’s School in Aycliffe got a first glimpse of the real custom-made “city”, which includes shops, a bank and a police station.

The Aycliffe school had already taken part in one of the pilot events last year and were eager to go back for more.

Gail Mason, a year six teacher at St Mary’s, said: “We spent two weeks looking at what a city is and how it works. We looked at how businesses run, which included the children interviewing some of the management team at Ebac and they also went through an interview process for a job.

“There’s a lot of writing involved, a lot of maths and DT. It’s related to work-life experiences and is very relevant.

“It’s given the children an understanding of why education is important and how it’s used later in life, and it will hopefully improve their performance in school ultimately.

“The enthusiasm for the whole project has been fantastic.”

The programme is designed to meet PSHE and incorporates citizenship, numeracy, literacy and art and design curriculum in an adaptable and kinaesthetic way, and is now being rolled out to schools across the North East.

One of the directors, Darren Anderson, said: “The preparation and getting the idea to County Durham has been years in the making, but now we’re here, the city has a permanent home and all we can do now is improve it and we’re really excited about that.”

Damian Stevenson, another of the three-man team leading the new project, reckons the innovative programme has “unlimited potential”.

He said: “The programme is designed to give them a platform from which to build on. They come on and express themselves, do their own things.

“They think, they learn and they develop with the programme during the course of the day, and I think it has unlimited potential. We’ve fought hard to get it to Aycliffe and into our local schools.”

Pamela Petty, managing director of Ebac, spotted the potential of Enterprise City when she was told about the scheme, and immediately offered the Enterprise trio the chance to uproot in her factory for free.

She said: “I was immediately taken with the concept, it’s something I’ve never heard of before and I just think it gives youngsters absolutely vital life skills.

“I think we can be guilty of bogging children down with words and numbers, without teaching them how to actually get on in life, and I firmly believe that a lot of adults could actually learn a lot from Enterprise City.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .