Pupils prove they have bright futures

Pictured (left-right) are Jade Thompson and Lauren Wheelhouse from Hollingworth Business and Enterprise College and Jack Morris and Laura Greenwood from Wardle High. Irka Jamil of Hollingworth Business and Enterprise College was also part of the winning team

Pupils from Hollingworth Business and Enterprise College and Wardle High School have proved they have bright futures ahead of them.

They demonstrated their excellent business skills at this year’s Young Enterprise Day, organised by Rochdale Borough Council and the Hollingworth college to promote enterprise activities in schools.

25 Year 9 pupils took part in the day-long event at Rochdale Town Hall. Teams of five were created from across the two schools, encouraging pupils to work co-operatively with people they’d not met before. The task they were set was to organise an event to raise money for a local charity.

The day was supported by local businesses and each team benefited from working with a mentor – Lisa Rhodes from IT service business CNT Ltd, Bev Sexton from the construction firm Jackson, Jackson, Michael Hayes from BusinessLink, Kelvin Heatherington from Molesworths Bright Clegg Solicitors and Simi Ghandi and Simon Adams from Carillion, the council’s Building Schools for the Future partner, which also provided the teams with the materials for the day.

After spending a few hours on the task, they then presented their proposals to a Dragons’ Den style panel made up of Castleton based architect Paul Clark from CJ Partnership, Colin Meredith from Style Magazine, business consultant Bill Lockie and Elaine Simons from EJS Marketing.

The winning team proposed organising a sport event aimed at giving families a great day out for a good cause.

Councillor Keith Swift, Cabinet Member for Skills and Economic Recovery, said: “It’s really important that young people are given the opportunity to develop their business skills in this way. The exercise really threw them in at the deep end, working with people they’ve not met before on a proposal that they have a short amount of time to deliver. Then of course having to present their idea to the panel is nerve-wracking. I congratulate everyone that took part and hope that the experience will prove useful to them in the future, especially if they come across Lord Sugar as they develop their careers!”

Mentor Bev Sexton said: “I was incredibly impressed with the knowledge and ability of all of these young people. For their age it is amazing the business ideas they came up with. From the experience of working with them on this enterprise it has left me feeling reassured knowing that they are the next generation in whose hands we will all be entrusting our future.”