Shiplake College – Enterprise Days are No Flop

20 Jun 2016

BTEC Business pupils were keeping busy last week, heading to three different primary schools in the local area in order to teach younger students the basics of business. The Shiplake Enterprise Days took place at Badgemore Primary School, Shiplake Primary, Gayhurst Prep School and St Mary’s School. Accompanied by Head of Business Studies Mr Andrew White, Mr Kevin Bloor and Mr David Rose, pupils from the Sixth Form BTEC course joined classes to teach a workshop on designing, creating and promoting a product: in this case, the challenge was to create a flip-flop!

Starting the day with activities such as building the tallest structure out of string, marshmallows, spaghetti and tape was a fantastic team-building exercise, and got the pupils thinking outside the box. The main focus for the day was then introduced: in small groups, pupils were tasked with designing and developing a brand new flip-flop, and then working on ways to promote the product. The room was a flurry of activity; the ideas were hugely varied from group to group, and the Shiplake boys were highly impressed with the innovative designs. The groups created mood boards to help generate ideas, and from there put together designs that they thought would sell well. Moving forward with their chosen ideas, the groups were then onto the construction and promotion elements of the course. Helping with the days were Anna Davies, Matthew Godwin, Christian Hjortland Marks, Henry Birdsey and Andrew Fearn.

The days were very well received; meeting with the school’s community involvement aims and charitable status, introducing to local schools and students Enterprise Education. The day was a resounding success; Badgemore School said that the workshops were ‘stimulating, entertaining and relevant’ and that the BTEC students ‘guided our children with respect and maturity.’ Badgemore have written a wonderful article about the day, which can be viewed here. White commented that ‘we are really pleased with how the sessions went. They demonstrated the commitment that Shiplake College has in educating young people, and the Sixth Formers were shining examples. Thank you to everyone involved.’