YOUNG ENTERPRISE Developing enterprise


More than 5,500 schools and colleges around the UK participate in the Young Enterprise programme. Here, Young Enterprise mentor Lyndsay Peck, a director of market research company Engage Research, explains how she helped students at one school bring a new product to market


H


AVING ALWAYS done the odd bit of voluntary work here and there, the chance to be part of a programme where I could pass on some of my business skills and experiences really appealed to me. But there is a big leap


between filling in the form, attending the induction day, completing the CRB checks and then standing outside your assigned school preparing to meet your charges for the first time. I had heard about Young Enterprise (YE) and was


aware that while Sir Alan was getting the headlines for making business cool via The Apprentice, students all around the country from primary, through secondary


Union address: NUT The academies debate


Christine Blower sets out her union’s


opposition to academies


THE GOVERNMENT’S new proposals to enable all “outstanding” schools to apply to become academies, some as early as September, is a matter of great concern. The process will be alarmingly simple, a


headteacher in an outstanding school simply registers an interest and a governing body passes a resolution. Outrageously, the government is saying there will be no requirement on the head or governors to consult parents, staff, pupils, the local authority or other local schools before passing a resolution. While fully supporting all our members in all


schools, we believe that the legislation will fragment the state education system and lead to competition between schools. Teachers’ pay and conditions and job security will be threatened as teachers will no longer be employed by the local authority. The new employer will be the academy sponsor


or proprietor, who will be able to set the pay and conditions of staff. Although staff transferring to an academy will have protection under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings, Protection of Employment, Regulations 2006) legislation, new starters will not be covered by national agreements. Teachers will be divided, with some on better pay and conditions. There could also be pressure on transferred staff to give up their existing rights. The full support the local authority currently


gives to a school will be reduced to the amount the academy can spend on contracts with other providers. The new employer will control the school’s admissions, curriculum and exclusions. Children with SEN and disabilities and their parents will have fewer rights. The ability for groups to set up their own schools,


irrespective of local planning needs, is a major step back which will create planning gridlock and social division, and see the transfer of billions of pounds of publicly funded assets in the form of buildings and


land out of public hands. The new academies will be run with little or no accountability measures in place and will take away parents’ rights to have any say in the way their children’s schools are run. The government needs to step back from this


obsession that anyone other than a local authority must be better at running schools. Apart from the serious implications for the future


of state education, the academies programme barely measures up to the chancellor’s own nine tests that will be used to decide whether public spending in any area should continue, least of all providing “substantial economic value” or targeting those most in need. If the government is serious about meeting its own specifications for spending and ensuring value for money, they need to listen to parents, teachers and pupils and drop the notion that academies are the way forward. There is little or no evidence that academy status


alone raises standards in schools, and what there is, is hotly disputed. The academies programme is unnecessary and unwelcome. This is an issue that has united the teaching profession and I am very glad we are speaking with one voice on the Academies Bill. Long may that continue because as well as


the Academies Bill we are also faced with the prospect of the Swedish “free schools” model being introduced in England. Education minister Michael Gove said while in


opposition that Sweden’s free schools have broken “the bureaucratic stranglehold”, and that, far from “driving segregation, these schools have driven up standards for all”. Yet the National Agency for Education (NAE) in Sweden points to a system that shows “fairly unambiguously that segregation has increased”. The NAE has found that free schools have higher results on average than municipal schools, but says a significant factor for parents who opt for the former is “choosing a particular desirable social context”. In other words, free schools are a magnet for the middle class. I’m in no doubt, the NUT and all other


organisations and individuals with an interest in state and comprehensive education are going to join together – this is a battle we need to win.


• Christine Blower is general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. Visit www.teachers.org.uk


Mentoring enterprise: The Tiaki Young Enterprise team from Kingston Grammar School celebrate its Best Presentation award for their book Kiki’s Rubbish Adventure (below)


and further education colleges, to university were quietly getting to grips with the rudiments of business through the YE programme. Indeed, an intern at my own company enthused about the experience he had had completing a YE programme at his own secondary school. My first realisation was that my assigned school – Kingston Grammar School – took the process extremely


seriously. Before I had even arrived, students had been interviewed to determine if they had the commitment and staying power necessary to see the project through. After all, it did require out-of-school commitment on top of an already intensive first year A level curriculum. That established, the company was formed under


the YE framework and the team set about establishing formal roles within the “corporate” structure – a managing director, a finance director, as well as those responsible for sales and marketing. But what was to be the nature of the company’s


business? We brainstormed and dismissed a number of ideas. The idea had to appeal to both genders in order to capture and retain their working interest – so a range of jewellery was quickly ruled out. The students themselves discussed the idea of a children’s book. My fellow mentor – Adam Filby from Cisco – and


I merely steered them along the way. They prepared their own mission statement – “to teach children about the value of environmental responsibility through a fun and innovative children’s book” – and were keen to deliver the message through their product that while it may be past generations that have caused current environmental problems it is the future generation that is going to have to deal with them. With that established, the year 12 students, one of


three YE groups at the school, established a company called Tiaki (Maori for “to care”) and created a children’s book entitled Kiki’s Rubbish Adventure, which introduces young children to the concept of recycling through a character called Kiki the Kiwi. There was “healthy debate” about the format the


book should take and its content. I remember the issue of grammar being particularly lively. But, having


produced a book that I believe stands on its own merit, they are now in the process of selling it, through primary schools, Waterstones and family and friends and, it has to be said, with some success. At this point, they have achieved net profit of approximately 35 per cent of sales. Each Monday afternoon – and more intensively as


competitions grew closer – we would meet with the team at the school and monitor progress, suggest, cajole and advise. We were keen to get them organised and operating efficiently and some time was spent ensuring that proper meetings with action points were taken and adhered to. I have to say we were both incredibly impressed by the standard and commitment that the students showed. Given my background, I was keen, of course, to


ensure that the team had done as much work as possible to ensure that their product was both viable and had sensible commercial potential. Mr Filby and I encouraged them to undertake basic


research by bench-marking their proposed price point for the book against comparable children’s books and contacting local primary schools to establish market demand. In terms of production, we were keen to impress upon them fundamental business principles – such as getting two or three quotes before committing to any one supplier. Having a link teacher as effective and experienced


as Kingston’s Richard Barker was really important to the success of the programme. He acted not only as the point of communication between the business mentors and the school, but also as a prompt and a supportive force to the students. He clearly sees the benefits that the students gain from involvement with the programme and because of that is central to why it worked so well. As for the students, they certainly grasped the


framework of how to establish a business, have been given an appreciation of some of the problem-solving skills you need and, most of all, have seen their self- belief and confidence really bolstered. Most striking for me was how they bonded and


worked together as a team in order to achieve while, in some of their own words, they “learnt to appreciate and work effectively with others while overcoming obstacles involved within a business” and “so many different challenges to overcome, deadlines to be met and meetings to run”. And what about me? I have thoroughly enjoyed the


experience – so much in fact that I have signed up to do it again. I got a genuine sense of pride when our team won the best presentation category in the local final. I was surprised but impressed by how competitive it became, both between the teams within the one school and against teams from other local schools. But business is competitive, so that in itself is a lesson well learnt. More importantly than anything, though, I enjoyed


the experience of sharing knowledge, of watching the students grow and seeing them willing to learn from the experience. Young people often get a bad press. Participation in Young Enterprise is an antidote to all that.


SecEd


• Lyndsay Peck is a Young Enterprise mentor and a director of market research company Engage Research.


Further information www.young-enterprise.org.uk


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SecEd • June 24 2010


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