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Schools are doing their bit to foster the entrepreneurial spirit, says Emily Jenkinson


Good business


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n March, Luke Johnson, the serial en- trepreneur and founder of Risk Capital Partners, appeared on an entrepreneur- ship panel at the Independent Schools Council (ISC) to discuss how schools can


further entrepreneurialism among pupils. “I was impressed at how keenly head teachers


at top private schools appear to be embracing enterprise as a career choice for their students,” he wrote later in The Financial Times. “My belief was that places such as Eton were an embodi- ment of tradition and taught their gentlemen pupils about maintaining the status quo – rather than the cut and thrust of commercial hurly- burly. I am clearly out of date.” Showing pupils an alternative to account-


ancy, consultancy, banking and other “default” occupations that “the bulk of independent school leavers” tend towards is a key part of encouraging entrepreneurship at independ-


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ent schools, according to Geoff Riley, Leader of Teaching and Learning Technologies at Eton College. He set up the Eton Entre- preneurship Society five years ago and has watched it become one of the most popular pupil-run societies, attracting several hundred pupils across all age groups to meetings, where established entrepreneurs – chosen and invited by the boys themselves – speak about their experiences. “The aim is for boys to understand better the lessons of more established entrepreneurs and draw on ideas that might be useful when setting up their own enterprise either here, at school, or later on,” says Riley, adding: “It does raise a question for them as to whether they want to follow that safe, well-trodden path from inde- pendent school to university to professional job or do things a bit differently.” Of course, hearing someone speak about


what it’s like being an entrepreneur is not the same as doing it for oneself, says Riley, and there are numerous ways at Eton in which boys can, and do, gain practical business experience, including taking part in one of the nationally- run programmes organised by Young Enterprise. The charity came from America to the UK back in 1974 and now helps 250,000 young people annually learn about business through hands-on projects. At Westonbirt School for Girls in Glouces-


tershire, Young Enterprise link teacher, John Sproule has seen pupils develop a weaving loom to make woven bags out of disused video tapes, a foot exerciser to stop Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and, this year, a business importing traditional crafts from Nepal. Pupils run their enterprises “like a proper company,” he says. “They sell shares to raise capital, they open a bank account with HSBC; they have to


Summer 2012 FirstEleven 27





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