Enterprise Learning

Schools have had to provide 30 hours of enterprise learning to their pupils since September 2005.

We use various methods to provide a mixture of activities which will engage all learners and provide the required enterprise elements for your school.  A TEDCO Enterprise in Education programme can last for five days and can be easily modified for all year groups, or be broken into four to six individual workshops.  Our programmes are carefully developed to meet the needs of your school and time tabling is always taken into account.

Five days will meet the minimum enterprise learning requirement but there are also many advantages for students and teachers to be seen in the development of whole school enterprise teaching and learning strategies that work throughout the subject curriculum.

Example Case Study

Day 1 - UN Enterprise Day

With an emphasis on teamwork and creativity, pupils are divided into teams which represent different countries then through various activities, they realise the economy of their country.

Day 2 - Finance Day

Following on from the Enterprise Day which introduced students to global economy via the Trade Game, the finance day consists of four workshops which are chosen from the following: 

• Tax Debate - why we pay tax and the need for taxation to pay for our health and education. 
• Happy Families workshop - whatever our economic background, we still have the same bills to pay and debt is an easy trap for anyone to get into. 
• Student Budgeting workshop requires students to research EMA’s the LSC, grants and funding available to students whether they go to university, college or into modern apprenticeships.
• Price it Right is a fun way to demonstrate how expensive basic food items are.  By guessing prices of items from four main supermarkets and comparing them to branded goods, students are astonished at how little they know about the real cost of food. 
• Lifestyles allows students to undertake a simple career inventory where they can discover the best career sector for them.  They choose a career and are told their salary.  They then work out whether their monthly salary covers their monthly costs. 
• Credit Cards are Bad is an informative session where students are shown a number of credit and store card options.  They learn about the real meaning of APR, becoming aware that the higher the APR the longer it takes you to pay off your credit card and the more you pay back in interest. 

Students are also given the opportunity to meet financial professionals therefore, career, education and real-life relevance is brought to the programme.

Day 3 - Legal Real Lives

Legal Real Lives is a programme that, if completed in year 10, covers the En1 targets of the Oral English syllabus.  Students are provided with a case study on a young offender who has been caught drawing graffiti on a building.  Police, a criminal solicitor, youth offending team and magistrates each provide a 20 minute talk on what they do and how they would be involved in the case.  Students then work in groups to role play the court session that would try the case.  Legal professionals advise students on how the court would be set out, what witnesses would be called and who would try the case.  The afternoon ends with the showing of the role plays.  Although classed as a day, this program is best run over five weekly sessions in English.  Visits to the Magistrates court or doing the role pay in a local university’s Moot Court can also be added to provide a more substantial and relevant project.

Day 4 - Recruitment Survival

Recruitment Survival is a thinking skills activity that fits in with work placements or Business Studies.  Students are “on” The Titanic as it hits the iceberg.  Ideal for up to 80 students at a time, students are placed in teams; each student is given a different passenger description and is told the name, age, languages, skills and background of their given person.  The students “become” that person for the day.  As the day enfolds, students first produce a team job advert for a “lifeboat survivor” then write individual CVs and letters of application for themselves.  They then swap their work with a neighbouring team who shortlist the team from 10 to 5 successful candidates.  After lunch, students produce 10 interview questions and interview the short listed five, choosing two successful applicants.  These two then face the grand panel (the rest of the students) with every team’s short listed two.  The observing students rate the candidates for ability to communicate (based on languages spoken) and survive on the lifeboat (character’s personality and skills).  Five successful survivors are then chosen and win the lifeboat places!

Day 5 - Sector Specific Business Challenge

A business challenge day is a grand scale event that brings in professionals from a chosen sector.  In the past our business challenges have focused on the environment, creative industries and the sports sector as themes.  Students are put into teams of around 10 -12 and each team has a facilitator from a sector specific company.  Students then come up with a business idea that could be a service or product – again sector specific.  Using business advisers, sector experts and financial advisers, students research the feasibility of their idea, develop a business plan and produce a presentation which informs others how they will finance their venture, how they came up with their idea and finally how they will produce and promote their product or service.

The day is a celebration of learning as it uses many of the enterprising, financial and creative skills that they have gained from the other four days.  By completing all activities, students will have utilised the enterprising skills of:

• Communication
• Problem solving
• Risk Assessment
• Decision making
• Financial awareness and capability
• Entrepreneurial capability
• Career awareness
• Teamwork

Other sessions can be run during PSHE time focusing on global economy, skills and qualities and, of course, careers.  Most sessions also touch on various aspects of the Citizenship curriculum and all days/sessions are evaluated to show what enterprise learning has taken place.