Published at 11:09, Thursday, 24 November 2011

THIS month saw National Enterprise Week take over schools across West Cumbria.

making their mark: The Christmas Chronicles team – Patrick McNicholas, Reece Bell and Jordan Mandale – show their idea for an interactive book to the judges.

Students got to grips with all things entrepreneurial and showed enough talent to knock Alan Sugar off his spot.

Leading the way was St Joseph’s Business and Enterprise School in Workington, which had pupils taking part in a host of activities throughout last week. The school invited professionals in to talk to students about careers and saw the likes of council volunteers, press officers, hairdressers, top bosses from the Port of Workington, construction workers, Sellafield managers... even dog groomers.

Local author Henry Brooks spoke to students about marketing and design, offering tips on how to design book covers (a task students were given during his visit). Other projects included designing and making a healthy biscuit, team-building and lateral thinking exercises, Christmas card designing, circus skills and organising a mini-Olympics.

One of the largest sessions saw pupils enter the Make Your Mark challenge in which a panel of judges listened to students present their ideas on a business product of their making.

As part of the challenge, the teenagers had to design a Christmas product which could be sold at the Winter Wonderland Christmas market in Workington, which was held last weekend. They had to consider costs, profit-and-loss margins, market competition, target consumers, and market research.

Personalised bracelets was the idea of one group who told the judges these could be scented and fitted with images of family or friends. Another presented Christmas baubles which had built-in fans that would blow snow around inside them.

Another group suggested a snow globe with dancing characters inside that could be plugged into an iPod docking station. A product which impressed the judges was a re-usable sleigh-shaped advent calendar which had a trail of boxes attached to hold presents or chocolates. The final project also proved popular with the panel – an electronic book on the story of St Nicholas and Christmas carols.

Conor Greenhow, 14, who took part in designing the book, said: “We had a full day to research and design our product – it took most of the morning just to make it. Part of the process involved brain-storming ideas within the group to find a product we all liked.”

Judge Andrea Skillen, of Workington’s Next store, said: “Some of the presentations were really slick and you could tell those who had put a lot of time and effort into their product. We were very impressed with what all the students came up with considering the timescale they had to do it in.”

Sybil Worsley, business manager at St Joseph’s said: “The purpose of the week is to promote entrepreneurial skills, confidence, and creativity and also create learning opportunities inside and outside the classroom that will enable students to develop skills suited to the workplace. St Joseph’s is a business and enterprise specialist school and as part of that remit we have a responsibility to work with the community. Every year we get involved in National Enterprise Week and we invite local professionals in to talk to students about careers, judge competitions and run projects for students.

“Over the years our pupils have worked with businesses and charities in providing website designs and other IT material. This work has given them invaluable experience in the world of work.

“The Make Your Mark challenge has gone down really well with these students. Some of the skills they have applied to their project, they have already covered in their business lessons but others have had new experiences introduced to them.

“They’ve all worked really well as a team today.”

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk