Learning to Work are looking for business volunteers to support Garth Hill College students participating in the Prince’s Trust Enterprise Challenge in December.
What is the Enterprise Challenge?
The Enterprise Challenge is a regional inter-school competition which encourages a spirit of entrepreneurship, with young people working in teams with the support of mentors to compete to become Enterprise Challenge Champions.
This business focused initiative is delivered in school and students are supported by business mentors throughout an entire school day. Students work in teams and will be tasked with developing a virtual pop-up shop, developing their ideas around what should be sold, their profit margins, target market and marketing initiatives. Towards the end of the day all teams will each participate in an online competition putting all their theory and business support into practice.
The Prince’s Enterprise Challenge is a fun, hands on, team focussed introduction to business and the world of work and a great way to introduce work ready skills to students.
As the event comes to a close, with the support of their business mentors, students will reflect on the skills they have developed during the day.
Aim
The Enterprise Challenge is a school competition where young people are supported by trained mentors to take on a range of challenges.
By taking part young people will have the opportunity to:
- Develop their confidence and aspirations for what they can achieve
- Increase their understanding of the world of work and their ability to have a positive impact on their wider community and society
- Build important skills: team work, decision making, problem solving, communication, creative thinking and resilience
What is involved?
Stage one:
The first stage of the competition takes place between September and December. Mentors come into school along with Learning to Work to deliver a day long activity.
Students compete within teams of 5/6 to play a business simulation game. Based on the concept of a pop-up shop, the game puts young people in charge of the conception and running of a brand-new micro-business. From choosing what to sell and for how much, to where to set-up shop and how to attract customers – it’s up to young people to build hype, get sales and make a profit.
Points go to the team that makes the most profit, puts ethical and sustainable business values at the heart of their decision making and builds the most hype by thinking about the needs of their customers.
Once all schools and teams have submitted their scores, the Prince’s Trust will calculate and advise Learning to Work which teams have reached the top of the score board and invited to participate at the next level and be invited to attend the Regional Final in February.
Stage two:
Once all scores are in the teams with the highest game scores in their region are invited to go through to the regional finals.
During this stage, each team will work together to create a social impact enterprise start up business. They will then work with mentors to develop and pitch their own business idea, putting into practice what they’ve learnt about what it takes to start an enterprise.
The teams will be supported to develop their business plan with a business mentor. Teams will then be invited to attend the regional final, during which they will pitch their business ideas to a panel of professional experts.
TO FIND OUT HOW TO GET INVOLVED PLEASE CONTACT NANCY LALOR AT: N.LALOR@LEARNINGTOWORK.ORG.UK
