“Applying the toolkit”
After a highly successful and extremely valuable first phase last term, led by Henley School for Entrepreneurship at the University of Reading, where the students were introduced to a range of ideas, theories and tools, this term sees the project move into Phase 2 – Application.
Over the course of five sessions this term, 24 students from The Abbey School and Reading School will be looking at how to take their embryonic ideas and convert them into developed business plans – all aimed at benefiting the local community under the guise of the Social Enterprise mantra of “People, Planet and Profit”.
On Monday of this week, the first session was held at The Abbey and we welcomed guests and volunteers who were supporting the students on this part of their journey. This is best summed up by Aggie, one of the Abbey Lower VI students:
“A productive social enterprise workshop took place on Monday 16 January. The evening began with an insight from the guest speakers, the creators of ’Design Nature’, on their experience in the field of social enterprise. It was fascinating to hear about their experience of building a social enterprise from the ground up as we, as students, are in the process of collaborating with Reading School. Our task for the evening was for each team to present a pitch on its proposed social enterprise scheme in only 90 seconds! With the help of a mentor from the University of Reading Entrepreneur Society in each team, we were all able to pull off a succinct presentation to share our plans with the rest of the teams, our special guests, mentors and teachers.”
Now that they have been able to articulate their vision, the hard work really starts as the students start planning their businesses, taking into account their stakeholders and identifying what success will look like.
If any of this has sparked an interest and you think that you might be able to contribute to the journey, then please get in touch with Mr Lovibond and we can discuss how you might be able to help. This project is about community and the more we can involve our own school community in the experience, the better for everyone.
