At Ringway Primary we believe that embedding enterprise and entrepreneurship into our curriculum helps children to enhance their skills for life. Enterprise activities can provide a vehicle for exposing children to the world of employers and business, and giving them the skills they will need for the world of work. Project-based activities can enhance children’s engagement with, and understanding of, a range of subject areas by demonstrating the relevance of their learning to their life beyond school. Where these projects are cross-curricular, children learn how different subjects are applied together in real life.
Children across the school regularly engage in enterprise topics.
In 2010, Ringway Primary was the first Primary School in Northumberland to receive the Warwick Award for Enterprise Education.
Some examples of recent projects include:
Year 1 – Ringway Bakery (Asda Bakery, Blyth) - A cookery project which resulted in Year One setting up their own bakery business.
The project was enhanced by a visit to the local bakery at Asda so that the children could watch how a business produced their goods on a daily basis. They were given a full tour of the bakery and saw the large ovens and fresh produce being baked for sale later that day. Back at school children became graphic designers and developed their own company logos and branding and then began to think about the types of products they could sell to their parents at a coffee morning (named Ringway Bakery) they were organising. Children worked in teams to communicate with customers and market their products by writing invitations to parents, making posters to advertise their bakery, making price tags and doing some market research on the price of bakery products in other shops in order to sell their own at a competitive price. The groups also developed teamwork skills when making the actual goods and working together on stalls to sell their products. They also had the chance to handle money and calculate basic transactions. Ringway Bakery was a huge success and parents were taken aback by such a professional job of running the business.
Year 1 – Chinese Cultures (SweeChoo Chinese Restaurant) – Comparing cultures project with children learning all about Chinese New Year and visiting a local Chinese restaurant and sampling the food.
Children in Year One were learning about Chinese New Year and how the Chinese cultures differ to their own. Children compared the celebrations in China to New Year in England. We visited a local Chinese restaurant to sample the traditional foods. Children asked the restaurant owners and workers lots of questions on the preparation of dishes and how to offer appropriate customer service when running a restaurant. They also waited on tables, took orders and worked as part of the restaurant team to make sure guests and their peers had an enjoyable experience. Once back at school, children decided that they would like their own role play Chinese restaurant. They transformed a corner of their classroom into a restaurant ensuring tables were set correctly, Chinese menus were printed and displayed and there were Chinese themed decorations to add to the atmosphere.
Year 2 – Health week (Active Northumberland and North East Hearts with Goals Charity) - Year 2 organised a whole school ‘Healthy Week’ where children across the school took part in many activities to promote a healthy lifestyle and fundraised for a school Defibrillator.
Year 2 worked together in teams to plan, organise and resource some whole school activities to promote healthy living. Activities included a whole school healthy breakfast, food tasting, mini exercise classes and a presentation on why drinking plenty water is important. A sponsored Zumbathon was also organised and a qualified Zumba instructor from Active Northumberland came to deliver a full afternoon of Zumba, all children across the school were sponsored to take part and we fundraised close to £2000 to buy a defibrillator for school. Once the project was completed, North East Hearts with Goals Charity came into school to present the new defibrillator and also donated a cheque of £100 towards the cost.
Year 3/4/5/6 – Make £5 grow (Virgin Money) – Children took part in the ‘Make £5 Grow’ project funded by Virgin Money, setting up mini businesses in school.
A representative from Virgin money visited school to launch the project to the children. Each child was given a £5 business loan to create their own business. They decided to work in small teams of 6 and pool their loans together. Children then quickly got to work on forming their own mini businesses and developing their ideas. A few weeks into the project the mini businesses needed to present their ideas to a panel of judges (Dragon’s Den style). These judges were local business men and woman.
As the project took part in Autumn Term (close to Christmas), children decided to create products or services with a festive theme. Children took on different roles within their businesses and logos and brandings were created, product catalogues were produced of all products available to buy or take part in. These were sent home with the children and the whole school were invited to purchase from the catalogue. Once the orders were in, the mini businesses set to work to produce all their orders and have them delivered to customers on time. More goods were made to sell after each of our school Christmas performances. Children remained focussed and professional throughout the project and after repaying their original loans to Virgin Money, a total profit of £811 was made.
Having the opportunity to work alongside a real business and receive guidance on the real processes involved in running a business brought many rewards to both the children and teachers involved. The children developed many new skills and particularly enjoyed and benefited from the experience of writing and putting business plans together. Children are using many of the skills developed in all of their school topics and subjects and their confidence in their self has risen substantially.
When the children were interviewed after the project they were asked which skills they saw as being important in order to run their own business, they saw practical work-based skills and accountancy as being of the most important. Children felt they especially developed skills in production, selling techniques, designing, marketing strategies, working to budget constraints and working cooperatively together through problem solving and negotiation.
Teachers have also seen the benefits of involving local businesses in school projects both for the children’s learning and for their own professional development. They are willing to work with outside agencies and businesses and because of the positive link made between the business and school. The business has expressed an interest in maintaining this link and being involved in future projects. Year 3 and 4 are currently repeating the project with an Easter Theme.
Year 4 Ringway’s Marvellous Soup (John Lewis, Newcastle) – Children researched soup recipes, worked alongside chefs in John Lewis department store and then designed and made their own soup to serve at a soup kitchen event in school.
Using George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl as a stimulus, children designed their own soup recipe to serve to their parents at a school event. The project started with children researching various soup recipes in school and food tasting a range of fresh vegetables. Children then designed a tasty recipe they thought would be a good seller at a soup kitchen. The children researched the cost of vegetables, branded their soup and created their own logo. Children visited John Lewis department store in Newcastle to work alongside their chefs. At John Lewis, children were shown around the large kitchens and got to see the chefs and front of house staff at work. They worked alongside the chef to prepare a soup that was then served to customers. They were also given aprons and hats to design with their own brand and logo. Back at school, children organised a soup kitchen event. Posters and invites were designed and distributed to parents; children prepared their shopping lists and did some online shopping for the fresh ingredients needed. On the morning of the event, children worked together to prepare and make two large pans of vegetable soup. Parents attended the soup kitchen in the afternoon and were served up the delicious soup at 50p per cup. The event was a huge success and children even made a £50 profit.
Year 5/6 Radio Ringway (BBC Radio Newcastle) – Year 5 and 6 visited BBC Radio Newcastle to learn all about the broadcasting world.
Children were given the unique opportunity to step behind the scenes of the television and radio world when they visited BBC Radio Newcastle.They then brought lots of ideas back to school on how to set up their own radio station. Children worked alongside a graphic designer to design a logo for their station ‘Ringway Tunesday’, they then worked in teams to take on certain roles in the broadcast. Children also learnt how to use recording equipment in school. This is a continuous project and each week a new broadcast is planned, written, recorded and broadcast to the wider school during lunchtimes.
Year 5 and 6 Designing Computer Games using Scratch and Kodu Programmes
Year 5 and 6 worked together in pairs and used Scratch and Kodu computer programmes to plan, design and create a computer game for a younger Year Group in school. They first had to think of a theme and design how their game would look and how it would work. Using the Scratch and Kodu programme, they then designed their game online, inputting a set of algorithms to make it work. They encountered many problems throughout the process and were able to successfully debug their programmes so that they worked as they had planned. As their projects developed they tried new themes, experimented with new actions, added new challenges, timers to add challenge and added scoring systems.
Once the games were completed, the children designed adverts to promote and market their game. Children from the younger classes were given the opportunity to play the games and give feedback to the Game Creators/ Computer Programmers. Students were then given the opportunity to review and evaluate their own games. This book shows examples of the games designed, created, their reviews and evaluations.
Photos of some of these projects can be found in Photo Gallery. Scrap books of each project are available at the school reception for viewing.