Putting Young Minds to Work

As part of our post-11+ programme, our Year 6 children enjoy a fantastic Putting Young Minds to Work project. Putting Young Minds to Work introduces business concepts to the children, teaching them critical entrepreneurial skills through interactive sessions, where they get a chance to build a mini business, pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and create a stall to showcase how they would sell their products or services. This fantastic programme helps nurture our young entrepreneurs for the future of business!

This year our Year 6 children presented some amazing mini business ideas at our Putting Young Minds to Work sample stall fair. Each team was given a budget of £45 to create and market their ideas. Children were put into teams and decided between them who would be responsible for each aspect of the business, including marketing, sales and finance. In their teams, the children thought carefully about their products and services, making sure to get feedback from their target customers to inform their sales strategies and pricing. The ideas that the teams came up with included a photography service, a magazine subscription and a gardening service. Their stall displays were beautifully presented, maintaining the theme and branding of their business.

Parents were invited to view the stalls and, along with Year 5 pupils, had the opportunity to give tokens to the stalls they liked best. They then watched the fantastic Year 6 teams pitch their ideas to the three judges, including two staff members and one parent.

The children presented confidently, answering all questions posed by the judges with assurance and a real understanding of their businesses. Each team created a website and a short video advert to accompany their stall and they were incredibly impressive. We are sure that they would certainly impress the Dragons’ Den judges!