So the flag is flying high in my school for Junior Entrepreneur!
I signed up for Junior Entrepreneur this year after a very successful project last year. I had considered the option of every second year as I have a multi-class, however I am glad now that I continued with it as it is that little bit easier as both myself and the class are well familiar with it. (Also I don’t think that my current pupils would have been too impressed if we didn’t do it again this year.)
Step 1: Discover
As one of my classes were familiar with JEP they helped to introduce it to my 5th class. They spoke in their groups about their own experience from last year.
Within Step 1 you introduce the children to entrepreneurs, who they are and most importantly what qualities and character traits you need to be an entrepreneur. Some children were unfamiliar with the term entrepreneur and after some discussion they were able to identify family members who also were entrepreneurs.
We also discussed some famous entrepreneurs such as Dyson, Marissa Carter and Keoghs who were included on the worksheet from Junior Entrepreneur.
Step 2: Ideas
The children completed the hand challenge which is also a great lesson for self-esteem. They drew around their hands and wrote their name in the middle. They passed the hand around the group and others wrote positive qualities about that child on the hand. They also identified their skills and talents which would be useful for our Junior Entrepreneur Project this year.
I also set the children the challenge of brainstorming their idea for this years project and preparing it at home. The children had to prepare a 1 minute presentation for their group which included a brief idea of costing, expected selling price and profit. It was so interesting to hear the language the children used when chatting in their group, at one point I heard a group discuss the unique selling point for their ideas.
The children presented their individual idea to their group. The group then had the opportunity to ask questions. Within my groups I have children from both classes so the 6th Class pupils were able to to chat with 5th class and outline the advantages to their idea but also to explain why their idea may not be suitable for our class due to lack of resources and materials. I think that 5th class accepted the constructive criticism from their peers rather than from me. Each group had a lengthy debating process to choose one idea for Dragon’s Den.
Once the groups had settled on one idea, they then prepared a presentation using Sway in Microsoft Office for their idea. Using Sway they could share it with all group members so they could work on it at home. I also set up groups on Edmodo so they could write comments to each other and ask questions which some groups took advantage of to prepare their product and presentation. Using Edmodo allowed me to keep track of their interactions also.
On the day of Dragon’s Den I have never seen such smart uniforms (not a pair of runners in sight) I held my Dragon’s Den in the final week of term, our play was earlier in December so we had time to prepare (it also kept the class on track for the final week.) The children presented their idea to 3 dragons who were staff and a member of the Board of Management. Their presentations included key slides Product, cost, retail price, profit, market, unique selling point and finally a slide for questions. The dragons were all impressed with the detail of the presentations and also how they had improved from Dragon’s Den last year.
After all the groups had presented the dragon’s then debated on the big idea. It was a lengthy deliberation however I think we have finally settled on our Big Idea!!!!!
What Next:
Inspire: Business Visitor
Our next Step is to invite a Business Visitor into the class to share their experience and it is a chance for the children to ask for advice for their own project this year.
In the meantime the project managers will have to decide on investment, last year the principal invested in the project with a 12.5% return of our profits. This year we will have to decide which path to take and begin the negotiations.
I will keep you posted with our progress, further information on Junior Entrepreneur can be found here.
Aistear Múinteoir 