Member Article

Middle school pupils impress dragons in the den

In a close fought grand final in front of their fellow pupils and teachers, 12 groups of wannabe entrepreneurs from Newminster Middle School lined up to present their ground breaking and innovative ideas to a panel of seasoned business experts.

The students, all year 7 ICT students were guided by their teacher – Mrs Bowler – to formulate a business plan and create a website and pitch to promote this new business.

The stakes were high! The teams were competing to win the chance to have their website hosted for 12 months, iTunes vouchers for all team members and a winner’s trophy.

The judging panel, which consisted of Ian McAllister of lazy grace (www.lazygrace.com), Jill Fenwick of The Sewing Box in Morpeth (www.sewing-box.co.uk) and Jacqueline Brewster of Miracle aloe Vera (www.miraclealoevera.com) were judging on very strict criteria – innovation, real world application and website design.

Ian McAllister said “considering the students are all aged 11-12 and have no real world business experience, some of the pitches we saw were better than the graduates we see coming into the office wanting to start their own business!”

The winning team was Care Home Entertainment, who are hoping to provide entertainment services to elderly residents in the form of drama, dance and music.

Rachel Bowler said “It was amazing to see the ideas and the creativity that the students had. Care Home Entertainment will be run as a social enterprise and not for profit and we can really see it flourishing in a real world setting.”

It is hoped that this is a programme that will be developed within more schools in the North East – if any teachers are interested in discussing further then they are encouraged to contact Ian for an informal chat.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by lazy grace .