Planning and evaluating a new enterprise ... - Ready Unlimited · (Source: Rotherham Ready Briefing...

Rachel Parkin CPD 2009

Planning and evaluating a new enterprise curriculum

Rachel Parkin

The Abstract

Is ‘Enterprise’ just another government led initiative aimed at overloading the curriculum, or does it have any real relevance to education in today’s fast paced society? Recent government reports, such as the Davies and the Leitch review, suggest that the economy will require a workforce which has transferable skills such as creativity and innovation, and which will be able to respond to change quickly. Does our current curriculum already provide such skills so that children are equipped to face a very different future than has been expected in the past? And if not, how can we incorporate ‘Enterprise’ within the time constraints and pressures that primary schools already face?

The purpose of this study is to:

a) Plan how ‘enterprise’ skills can be incorporated into a primary school effectively, and

b) Evaluate the effectiveness of an enterprise curriculum within the school with staff, children and parents.

The findings of this project reveal that if the curriculum is creative, flexible, and relevant; and are skills-based rather than objective-led, then Enterprise should be seen as a natural way of ensuring that children receive the life-skills they will need when they enter the workforce. There are always going to be barriers, but as with any new initiative – its success depends upon how well it is implemented by the leadership team to the stakeholders in order to bring in as many driving forces as possible. (Lewin 1951)

The Contextual Statement

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When I was asked to attend an ‘Enterprise’ course led by Rotherham Ready in 2006, little did I know how significant the impact of the course would be? It was one of those moments where, as a new Deputy Head in a primary school with no previous business knowledge, it seemed to make perfect sense. We had already spent a year remodelling the curriculum so that the emphasis was on teaching key skills, such as problem-solving, and making learning ‘real’ to the children. Suddenly, the impact of the Rotherham Ready programme showed that we need to use the curriculum we had already invested in and use the enterprise skills to make ‘tweaks’ in order to give our children’s learning a purpose.

According to the Rotherham Ready principles, the key themes were:

• To raise aspirations of all its young people

• To ensure that they believe in their ability to be able to succeed when they go to secondary school and beyond

• To get children to look at the wider world beyond Rotherham but at the same time increase their pride in the town’s past achievements

• To encourage children’s knowledge of community activity and enhance the prospect of them getting involved with it

• To look towards the future by getting children to consider what Rotherham needs and how they can help in future years.

(Source: Rotherham Ready Briefing Papers Number 2 “Primary schools and enterprise education)

With this in mind, I set out to plan and implement Enterprise education in my school, knowing that it may be difficult getting the rest of the staff, who already work incredibly hard, enthused about another “initiative” on top of the many changes surrounding education at present.

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Our school SEF (1a) states: “..... is an average primary school in many key criteria. There are 203 FT and 33 PT children on roll.....The socio economic circumstances are generally unfavourable as we draw from the communities of ………..which are ranked in the top 10% of most deprived areas in Rotherham, a city which is in the lowest 10% districts for employment in the UK.”

My first project was to trial an enterprise activity with my class of 31 Year 6’s, which had 13 children on the SEN register. As I was already engaged in a project on ‘chocolate’, I decided to have an explicit Enterprise element where the children were set the challenge of designing, costing, making and selling a chocolate product for a “Healthy Chocolate Tuck-shop”.

I split the children into ‘companies’ where they applied for their positions, and went through an interview process. This was illuminating for the children who had to match their skills to the different roles and justify why. One boy said he wanted to be a ‘promoter’ because he could talk a lot!

We looked at the power of advertising and the importance of using persuasive language and different ways of communicating messages. They wrote their own slogans and created and performed adverts in front of the class, stretching their normal communication boundaries with the added element of role-play and presentation.

The following day, children came into the classroom literally ‘buzzing’ with excitement. Some had even made prototypes at home of what they wanted to sell. One particular boy from a disadvantaged background had asked his mum for £2, went to the shops and bought his own ingredients and made them at home to bring into school to try.

The success of the “Healthy Tuck shop” meant that all the children and staff in school were able to see what enterprise education could be in its most explicit form. The children’s evaluations demonstrated how difficult they found certain elements, such as teamwork, collaboration and reciprocity, but also how valuable in life these lessons could be.

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Giving children a clear purpose and capturing their imagination would be a good starting place to try to make Enterprise a natural part of our creative curriculum.

Engage with a Knowledge Base

(i) The Economic Imperative

According to Professor Michael Barber in his briefing paper “The Very Big Picture” (Improving Schools Volume 3 Number2 2000) the significant reforms in education over the last 10 years is a direct response to the labour government’s promise, where Tony Blair announced, “Our goal is the creation of a world class education system in which education in not the privilege of the few but the right of many.”

The changes in the global economy mean that the supply of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in the economy is no longer tolerated. Our education system needs to be transformed so that it can provide a high standard for all, not just the privileged few. He argues that there are four ‘imperatives’ that lie behind the need to transform education systems: economic, social, demographic and global.

Above all the future success of the education system is dependent on a forward-looking teaching profession which is well led and supported by other professions and specialists teachers who have time to teach the new skills so our students are equipped to enter a society where a range of career opportunities for talented young people expands. He goes on to argue that change can only become embedded into every classroom so that it is not just put into practice but put into practice with quality and sustained. This is the challenge to teachers and the education system.

However, as valid as his opinions regarding the economy and politics are, he does not mention education and teaching until over halfway through his reading, and even then I found it quite hard to grasp anything tangible that I could apply in my own day-to-day teaching.

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The economic view is also upheld by Chris Watkins in a report by Stoll (1996) in “Enhancing internal capacity: Leadership for learning” (NCSL) who says that there are four change forces affecting employment: social, technological advances, environmental deterioration and economic. He argues that: “People entering the work world can expect to change their occupation many times and with a dramatic increase in service and knowledge, work has coincided with a sharp decrease in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations.”

Francis Cairncross (1997) “The death of distance”, believes that the future impact of shifts in the global economy with their profound significance for education are already apparent. For example, employment opportunities for those with high levels of education and skill are growing. For those without education, they are vanishing.

The nature of work and of specific jobs changes ever more rapidly. Only well –educated people will have the confidence and flexibility to deal with regular changes of employment or in the nature of their work. More people are becoming self-employed, giving them freedom and flexibility, but this also demands a wider range of life skills and personal responsibility.

(ii) Education and Economics

Preparing for the Future

According to Geoff Esland (1996), “in an era of more structural change...a more sensible strategy is to develop the capacities of young people through general

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education to an extent which permits them to move quite flexibly into opportunities which later arise.”

Gibbs (1987) claims there are at least 12 ‘entrepreneurial attributes’ which students require in order to cope with the new demands of the workforce, including initiative, persuasive powers, risk taking, flexibility, creativity and leadership.

The Howard Davies review, “Enterprise and the economy in education” (2002) reinforces these views and argues that enterprise learning in schools can develop the skills and attitudes necessary to manage more flexible careers and understand risk.

On a practical level, it is argued that the importance of integrating the assessment of a school’s delivery of enterprise learning into the OFSTED framework. Without that underpinning, schools may not find it possible to give it the attention it requires, and it will not become a mainstream activity. He acknowledges that without careful planning, effective partnership and adequate funding, schools will be unable to deliver an effective enterprise curriculum. Packages of enterprise learning need to be made more accessible and easy to deliver by teachers in partnership with business and brokers. Pressure on curriculum time is also fundamental.

This was one of the most important areas I needed to address in order to integrate an enterprise curriculum with the rest of the curriculum, and to ensure that it is not seen as an ‘add-on’ and without ‘elbowing’ out other essential elements of the curriculum. I needed to use curriculum time more effectively if the school was to take an integrated approach to enterprise learning, for example, linking financial literacy with the numeracy framework; incorporating elements of Design and Technology by giving products a purpose; and using elements of literacy and ICT with advertising, letter writing and persuasion.

For schools to provide quality enterprise learning experiences, effective external support is vital. The best businesses are particularly the smaller ones, as these are often the most enterprising, where young people can see the

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relevance, excitement and challenge of enterprise brought to life. (Davies 2002) It was on this premise that Rotherham Ready launched their “Make £5 Blossom” initiative. This gave a selection of schools, from Primary to special, the opportunity to link with a local business partner who lent them £150 to start an Enterprise Project. The idea was to use the business partner as a means of support in running the project, and then to use the money as a loan which was to be paid off. Any profits from this would be kept by the school.

This is where I realised that the opportunity had arisen to not only gain a useful business partner, but also to steer Enterprise into the curriculum by raising its profile within the school.

According to John Healy (MP) in “Starting them Young: creating a culture of enterprise for all” (2004) at a discussion at the Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, the town’s current entrepreneurs were united in arguing that the future success of Rotherham’s economy depends on a new and stronger generation of entrepreneurs coming through. They want to see more young people ready to take risks; test new ideas and try to set up and grow their own businesses. To do this, it must come from the entrepreneurs rather than educationalists.

This view is backed up by Broker in the Davies Review (2004) who argued that, “For children to be able to maximise their potential and have confidence, teachers need to be able to enthuse and speak confidently on the subject. Many teachers have not experienced the world of work outside of the education environment.”

Ed Balls (MP) believes that the governor’s task in building an enterprise culture is to give all young people a ‘can do’ confidence, a creative questioning and a readiness to take risks. Enterprise education needs to be about inspiring as well as educating, about insights and experience rather than just facts and techniques.

It was from this research that the “Make £5 blossom” was launched in Rotherham, and from this I planned an after-school Enterprise club who formed a business calling themselves “The Personal Touch” and with the

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money we bought a digital camera, selling personalised photograph frames, bookmarks and note books at a Launch activity during the school’s book fair week. Like many other teachers, I had no previous experience of working in a business outside education so was grateful that our business partner, Corus Steel, gave us support during the development of the project from letter writing, creating order forms and supporting the children at the ‘Launch event.’

The profit we made, which was approximately £90.00 was reinvested into future enterprise projects which were to be run in the school. Although this was hard work and required a lot of commitment and time from both staff and pupils involved in the project, it would become hugely beneficial in raising awareness of enterprise. I now had a business partner who kindly agreed to let us keep the £150.00 which they had initially loaned us; all I needed was to engage the rest of the staff in order to make Enterprise part of our already developing skill-based curriculum.

(iii) Engaging Staff and Stakeholders in an Enterprise Curriculum

Having looked at the “big economic picture” and then at various reports indicating how and why we need to prepare our children for an ever-changing uncertain future, I needed to look at the practicalities of incorporating “Enterprise” into our curriculum, and being able to take as many staff with me as possible. Having recently participated in the Leadership Pathways programme with the NCSL, I used some of my research from various ideologies to develop my own leadership style. My question was, “How could I get the majority of the staff to realise that ‘enterprise’ was an important and integral part of our curriculum?”8


In the TDA publication, “The little book of managing change,” it states that, “When leading change, you need to collaborate with stakeholders to determine individual local solutions.” To become an effective leader, people need to feel involved and valued and responsibility needs to be shared. This was something I needed to bear in mind if I wanted to meet my aims.

Stoll and Fink in “Changing our schools” (1996) interweave school improvement and development planning alongside the need for a cultural acceptance by the school of this. They believe that ‘invitational leadership’ is a model for embarking on and continuing with change. This is where leaders firstly invite themselves and others to participate in the change, and secondly are invited to work together to collaborate in the change. This invokes a level of respect and trust in ability and opinion, and there is also a commitment to the action for change.

After leading a staff meeting to feed back from the initial training day, and disseminating a wealth of resources I invited staff to trial some of the elements of enterprise in their own classes. I had the support of the Head Teacher, who was committed to incorporating Enterprise into our curriculum. The results were mixed and I knew much more collaboration was needed for people to buy into the change.

In the article, “The Adoptive State” (2003) Ronald Heifetz argues that “adaptive challenges” require learning. They are not authoritarian as the stakeholders have to “buy into it and learn for themselves.” He identifies 7 ways to approach organisational change and development. Firstly, people need to take responsibility for themselves. They have to learn about the change so that when the new approach is understood, the gap between reality and aspiration closes. Thus there becomes a shift in responsibility from authority to stakeholders. He also believes experimentation is crucial, and to use people’s conflicting approaches as a source of innovation. The most important element though is time, and lots of it, as many “adaptive challenges” fail if they are not given enough focussed time.

Bearing this in mind, the approach that I concentrated on was to try to move the responsibility from authority to the stakeholders through a process of broad collaboration, and using people’s conflicting approaches as a source of 9


innovation. We had just reorganised the staff into Curriculum Teams, where subjects were organised into 3 “umbrella” areas: Sciences, Arts and Inclusion. Each team was led by a member of the SLT who had their own part of the Developing Excellence Plan to work towards. How could Enterprise suddenly fit into our whole-school action plan when the Primary Framework was being remodelled, as was our whole curriculum?

Other initiatives that were being developed in school at that time included sustainability and healthy schools, which were also at the forefront of our agenda, so I had to think of a way to integrate the elements together, so that people didn’t feel that it was yet something else they had to do. As Heifetz wrote, “Survival of adaptive work requires it to thrive in its new environment.”

Since 2006, we had all agreed and were implementing a skill-based curriculum, where the subjects taught were skills based so that subjects and themes were linked, giving them greater meaning for the children. This showed that people had already “adapted” and living the new approach. They were not a team of staff who avoided change, but one who knew what elements of the curriculum was expendable and what elements to keep which were precious. I felt this was a positive start.

The process of implementing a whole-school approach to an enterprise curriculum I knew would take time, and so in order to embed it I would have to use the Lewis force field analysis and look at where the driving forces would be and the restraining forces in order to reach a “dynamic equilibrium”. (Lewin 1951)

The driving forces would be:

• It promotes children’s independence

• Provides a forum for focused speaking and listening opportunities

• Encourages group work and gives a clear purpose which would benefit under-achieving pupils, especially boys and children with SEN

• Links to our skill-based curriculum, developing their skills for life.

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The restraining forces would be:

• Staff acceptance of it’s worth

• Time allocated during the course of the school day

• Money for financing projects

Finally, Covey (1989) in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” has been a huge influence in developing my leadership style. In particular, habit 1 – “Be Proactive” where I looked at the circle of influence to build up the confidence within some members of staff and devote most of my time and energy. This model is similar to Lewin’s (1951) force field analysis where as a leader trying to implement change I had to acknowledge my driving forces and restraining forces, and according to Covey, increase my ‘positive energy’ to enlarge my Circle of Influence in order to move the responsibility to the stakeholders. Armed with this knowledge and newly-found skills, I began to implement Enterprise into the curriculum.

4) Planning of a change activity

Aims

At a staff meeting in March 2008, I presented our Enterprise Statement for approval. (see appendix 2)

The staff were satisfied with the phrasing of this statement, and it now forms part of our whole-school Enterprise Policy (see appendix 3). This was also my overall aim, but mainly it was for as many staff to ‘live’ this statement as possible rather than paying ‘lip service’ to it. This would then help to develop the core skills children need to be successful in all aspects of their lives; and would foster creativity and enterprise in all staff and pupils.

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In summary, the main aims of this project were:

1) To plan, carry out and evaluate an Enterprise activity as a whole-school

2) To integrate specific enterprise skills into the curriculum, and to build upon them year on year in line with National Curriculum.

3) To identify in planning opportunities for enterprise education

The desired outcomes:

1) The success of a ‘real’ enterprise project, where every child has had a role, an element of responsibility and understands risk.

2) Long term plans reflect opportunities for enterprise education and a focus on the explicit skills to be taught by each year group.

3) Teacher’s medium-term plans build in elements of enterprise by integrating with other areas of the curriculum.

Following the success of the ‘Make £5 Blossom’ with the after-school club, I felt that the money that our business partner, Corus steel had invested in us could now be used to develop Enterprise as a whole-school approach. Other initiatives which were current priorities were ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Healthy Schools’. I consulted with the Head teacher, as he also could see the

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opportunity in developing enterprise as a vehicle for delivering some of the key skills underpinning our curriculum, which we referred to as “Creativity with Rigour.”

What we needed was an idea for a project which would combine all three priorities, and to do this we would give each class £20 from the £150 that Corus had given us. We called the Launch project ‘Make £20 Blossom’, the premise for which I introduced at a staff meeting. We ‘celebrated’ the areas of enterprise that had already been achieved and showed a list of activities and events already in our calendar that could come under the ‘enterprise’ umbrella – healthy tuck shops, cookery lessons, compost collectors, the Eco Worriers. The list was endless.

The aim of the project was then initiated: each class was to grow their own vegetable in our newly-developed garden using the £20 investment. The children would cultivate it, and at the same time, find up to 4 recipes which incorporates that particular fruit/vegetable to undertake with the class. Photographs would be taken to show how to make each dish along with the recipe, so that the members of Challenge Club (my after-school enterprise group) would then compile to produce a recipe book which would be sold at the Summer Fayre. Any money left over from the £20 could then be used to produce further items to sell at the event. Children should be taught the basics of financial literacy – profit, cost and loss; and all children should be involved and given specific roles and responsibilities.

This project seemed to tick a number of boxes with all the staff – they could see the relevance of linking enterprise with other aspects of the curriculum, including sustainability, Healthy Schools, literacy and numeracy, DT, ICT and PSHE. Businesses were contacted, such as Tesco, where children wrote letters requesting vouchers towards the cost of ingredients to produce the recipe book and the local garden centre provided seeds for our garden.

The atmosphere around school was buzzing! Most classes were well underway with their individual projects, as ownership had been given to the stakeholders. Some members of staff needed more encouragement to make a start than others, but that was one of the issues I anticipated. Most 13


importantly, enough time was provided for the plants to grow and for the recipes to be trialled with each class. In addition, people knew they were working towards a deadline.

The Challenge Club were used to good effect by identifying suitable recipes and made packs of ideas for each class. They also wrote persuasive letters to local firms for assistance; and the parent’s association were enlisted to support the running of the Summer Fayre. They also used the camera we had bought from the previous activity to help with the photographs. At all times, I remained in close contact with our business partner from Corus who often dropped in to provide support.

All classes had given their recipes to me and 150 copies of the recipe book were produced, at a cost of less than 20p per book (taking into account cost of paper and photocopying!) The orders had gone out before the event by the Challenge Club, at a cost of £1.50 per book. In addition, classes had made other items to sell at the fayre, such as the Year 6’s who had made a Bean Planner, where they had each designed a bean to put onto a yearly planner and included 3 broad beans to sell with them. The cost price was 23p including the card, and these were to be sold for £1.00!

The infants and foundation children had opted to hold their enterprise event separately, and sell their tomatoes and cress seeds after their respective summer concerts and coffee mornings, which were already part of the school’s calendar of events. This would therefore limit the issues around adequate supervision at the summer fayre.

The Year 5 children wanted to base their stall around the theme of strawberries, and created a range of items to sell, from smoothies to strawberry cakes. All the children worked in teams and produced prototypes first before selling them and held tasting sessions. They designed their own posters around school, and had a price list, which had been fully costed out beforehand.

In Year 4 they had decided to use chillies, and each child grew their own chilli pepper; and then used them to make hot chilli chutney at a huge profit! Year 3

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children had made a herb garden and used the herbs to make a range of dishes as they found out about different countries, such as Tzaziki and cheese and chive dips. This formed a half term project, and the remainder of the money was spent on ingredients to sell the dips in small polystyrene containers with lids. Labels were designed, posters displayed and the school was ready for its first whole-school enterprise event.

One of the key enterprise skills which would be required was resilience. Staff and children had to be adept at making changes, and there is nothing like the British weather to dampen spirits! Heavy rain was forecast, and so contingency plans were put into place to bring the summer fayre inside. This is a huge event for parents and supporters of our school, and they are always well attended. Being a small school with a limited sized hall would bring about its own challenges, but we went ahead. As predicted, many people came to the fayre, and each class set up its own stall outside classrooms. But that didn’t come without problems, as many people came but left quickly due to the crowded corridors! The atmosphere was buzzing, and some children became natural ‘salesmen’. Some stalls became more like a Saturday afternoon market, with children lowering their prices in order to make a sale.

The parents I spoke to were delighted with the products, and were eager to taste the dips with pitta before they bought. Some were a little more reluctant to try “foreign” foods, so needed to settle for something they were more familiar with! But at least the whole experience in its most explicit form was on show to the rest of the school community. Hopefully, activities like this would raise the aspirations not only of the children, but also of their parents too.

In the end, every recipe book was sold; netting a total profit of £120 and this was split equally between the 7 classes to add to their individual totals.

In addition, classes used financial literacy to discuss profit, loss and cost, and could work out how much they had each raised in order to buy something for their classroom. This was led by class council who led the meetings. Most classes made around £30 profit, although the Year 4 class made over £80 profit. Even though most items were sold, it was felt that had the summer fayre been held outside where there was more room to look properly; more 15


would have been sold and therefore more profit could have been made. This was just one of those learning experiences that unfortunately were out of our control.

The children’s experiences of this activity were positive. They enjoyed “working as a team,” and many remarked that they had tried new vegetables and dishes, and understood why it was necessary to eat vegetables. “Because it’s healthy and helps you to grow”, was a common response. They also remarked that “sometimes you have to make changes” and you need to “listen to other people’s ideas.”

5) Evaluating the change activity

In order to evaluate each of my desired outcomes, I produced questionnaires which were given to staff, pupils and parents. Informal talks were also held with staff when discussing the outcomes of the project.

1) Outcome one – The success of a ‘real’ enterprise project, where every child has had a role, an element of responsibility and understands risk.

Pupil’s views:

In order to gain an understanding of how pupils felt about their enterprise activity, I took a sample of children from each class to discuss their thoughts

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and feelings about the ‘Make £20 Blossom’ project. They could all name a variety of Enterprise activities that they had participated in, including the Christmas Fayre, Summer Fayre and a Strawberry Tea event held in school 2 years ago; and recognised the Enterprise elements within them.

100% of pupils said that they enjoyed participating in Enterprise projects. They believed that Enterprise meant developing skills such as co-operation, team work and “putting effort into making money.” Some children were able to refer to “making profit in what you sold”, and recognised that about “being persuasive and cunning.” 40% of the children questioned remarked that Enterprise was about “learning new skills”.

When asked if they thought Enterprise was important, 80% referred to “life skills” and that “it will help you in the future”, with one child pointing out that “because of the job loss in the market we might get a good chance of getting a job.” 20% of the children believed that Enterprise was important because it was about “raising money.”

They were then asked to tick which of the 13 Key Enterprise skills they had used as part of their class projects. 100% had identified team work, problem-solving, creativity, risk management, and having a positive attitude. The skill that was used least, according to the pupils, was ‘initiative’, although this may reflect the children’s own lack of understanding of its wider meaning, which may in turn require a much more explicit approach when referring to the skills with the children.

Finally, pupils were asked to think about how Enterprise could be made even better. Half believed that we should “do it more often” whereas others felt that it should be “made into a whole school competition,” or “take our business out onto the streets.” One pupil remarked, “It is fine as it is!”

Teacher’s views:

I gave the majority of staff a questionnaire to complete, which was quite similar to the pupils’.

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They were able to outline a range of activities that they had completed with their own classes that would fall under the “Enterprise” umbrella. This ranged from the Playground Leader initiative, DT projects, group presentations in cross-curricular projects, Teddy Bear’s picnic in Foundation to the whole school fayre, which was linked to our Healthy School’s agenda.

Many teachers were able to identify the skills that the children had learnt from the activities, such as team work, organisation, researching recipes, advertising, understanding the price of materials, and that the children are using their real life skills for a purpose.

They all felt that Enterprise education was important, as it provided “opportunities for developing social skills, particularly those relating to the workplace” and that the “planning and thinking things through were the end result, not necessarily the monetary gain”. Some staff referred to Enterprise as a tool to motivate children and provide an opportunity for developing independence. All staff questioned remarked that they enjoyed teaching Enterprise education, “because the children were enthused by it, and all children of all abilities could be involved at their level of ability.”

When asked which skills were explicitly taught during the ‘Make £20 Blossom’ project, the majority of staff were able to identify a minimum of 6 key skills, with some staff identifying all 13! ‘Initiative’ and ‘Leadership’ were the two skills that staff felt they had not addressed in the project, which reflects what the pupils had felt too. Thus, when developing an Enterprise curriculum with the staff, being able to allocate skills within particular year groups would be beneficial.

On the downside, some staff felt that the timing felt a little rushed, and there wasn’t enough produce to grow for everyone. Space in the classroom was also an issue, and the Foundation unit had only received £20 for 2 classes, which was quite positive, because I had overlooked the commitment of the staff who were delivering enterprise within the school, even with such young children!

When asked how Enterprise could become a more integrated aspect of our curriculum, the majority of staff felt that the skills should be planned for as

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part of what we teach anyway, giving the children practise at developing their understanding of what each entails; so that when the financial element is involved, it becomes the motivation for all children to learn and achieve. Linking an Enterprise element into our fundraising events through school, and concerts would also ensure that it is an integral part of our curriculum, so we are not seeing it as something extra. Other staff commented that developing Enterprise within after-school clubs, such as gardening club would be beneficial, as would developing links with local industry.

Parent’s views:

In order to triangulate my findings, I asked a sample of parents a few questions to find out if they had heard of Enterprise, and understood why we were teaching it. They could all name some of the Enterprise activities their children had been part of, such as card making, and all replied that their children had enjoyed taking part in the activities. When asked if their child talked about the activities at home, one parent replied, “All the time!” and another described how they had to recreate the business at home! They believed that the learning their child receives from this work will give them “business skills” and be able to “work as a team,” and that it is important because it gives them “life skills.” Other projects they felt they would like their children to become involved in were to “make money to put towards charity” and “incorporate enterprise events within what was happening in school already.”

To summarise, Enterprise education at our school is concept that has been understood and embraced by most stakeholders, particularly staff and pupils. The results from the survey suggest that Enterprise skills are recognised to be valuable in terms of giving pupil’s the skills they will need when they enter the workforce. Every child in the school had a role and an aspect of responsibility in the Make £20 Blossom project. 90% believed that they had developed their understanding of risk management, and understood the terms ‘profit’ and ‘loss’.

What now needs to be done is to explicitly incorporate them into our curriculum so the children understand which skills they are using in a variety of contexts, and to know what they mean. More also could be done to utilise the 19


skills of parents within our school, developing links with local businesses and colleges of Further Education, and even running a parent’s class where Enterprise education is explicitly taught. As we are in a low socio-economic area, developing this work with our parents may also prove to be a valuable tool for encouraging their own prospects, and in turn, that of their children’s.

Outcome 2 – Long term plans reflect opportunities for enterprise education

Outcome 3 – Teacher’s medium term plans build in elements of enterprise by integrating with other areas of the curriculum.

The remaining two outcomes could be grouped together, as they are still in the developmental stages within the planning and assessment of our key skills. This is of no detriment to the project, as the main focus for this assignment was to plan and evaluate a new enterprise curriculum within our school, which has been completed. Examples of medium term planning show where Enterprise will fit comfortably into the curriculum through art and ICT. (Highlighted in red – see appendix 8). Long term planning is in working progress.

As part of our remodelled curriculum, which is based on delivering ‘key skills’, many of the Enterprise skills are integrated within the curriculum, such as decision making and problem-solving, organisation and planning, and effective communication. It is now our priority this year (2009) to adapt our long term plans and decide as a staff which skills each class will teach both implicitly and explicitly over the year within other aspects of the curriculum; and most importantly, how these will be assessed by both teachers and pupils, and then shared with parents.

What I feel my main achievement is through introducing this initiative, is that most teachers understand the importance of Enterprise education, and frequently refer to the 13 key skills when discussing the curriculum. It also

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forms part of the Every Child Matters agenda, by addressing the entitlements, “Enjoy and achieve” and “Make a positive contribution.”

We also gained the Warwick Award for Enterprise at the end of 2008,

which demonstrated our achievement towards embedding Enterprise at whole-school level.

After our recent OFSTED inspection report (December 2008) our commitment to Enterprise was acknowledged as it states that, “ A developing understanding of enterprise enables them to face life’s future challenges with confidence, “ and goes on to say, “Opportunities to engage in environmental and enterprise activities, supported by local businesses...successfully promotes personal development and well-being”.

Indeed, in many classrooms these skills are now displayed visually and used by both teachers and children. Even in the Foundation unit they are referred to through the use of puppets (see appendix 9) which are a revelation in itself!

Most importantly, when planning and implementing Enterprise into the curriculum, specifically when identifying the key skills, is to realise that they are integrally linked with other skills, such as those identified by Bloom in his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956), which we are beginning to incorporate to further develop our curriculum. It would therefore seem keeping it manageable and purposeful would be the underlying factors to bear in mind, and being able to recognise and build on the wonderful opportunities that already exist within the curriculum.

6) Dissemination

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It was through the initial training led by Rotherham Ready that inspired me to begin to look for ways to incorporate Enterprise into the curriculum. Therefore, it would seem a fitting reflection on their part to publish this document on their website for others to read, and perhaps take some inspiration from my case study too!

I also intend to showcase the work that has been achieved as a result of this project at the Enterprise Champions meeting later this term, as an example of some of the excellent practice that takes place within Rotherham schools.

Our school has been fortunate to be selected to become a pilot school for developing an Entrepreneurs club in Rotherham, for which we are to be given £500 and a business partner to help support us. We have decided to link this with an existing after-school gardening club but to incorporate an Enterprise element within it, for example developing our garden to include a wider range of produce to be sold at “farmer’s markets” during playtimes and to parents. Therefore, the results from this project will be shared at the launch event to provide a context to enable others to see how we are continually looking for ways to develop and spread the Enterprise message.

Staff meetings will form a large part of the dissemination of this project, especially as we look at ways to incorporate Enterprise skills within the curriculum and be able to assess them. I have already shared my findings from this research with 3 third year Hallam student teachers who have attended training led by Rotherham Ready, and are incorporating explicit teaching of the 13 enterprise skills within their own classrooms; and therefore cascading further good practice to pupils, teachers and parents.

I have shared with governors a presentation of the Make £20 Blossom from when it’s ideological state to provide them with an overview of Enterprise in education. When the new curriculum is ready for approval, I will again present my findings to them to show how the skills have become incorporated within the overall curriculum, so that they have a deeper awareness of what the school is trying to achieve for its pupils and why (see appendix 10).

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Finally, I have recently been chosen as a group of teachers from Rotherham to go on a TIPD visit to Adelaide in Australia, which was led by our school improvement partner. The main focus was on assessment, but whilst there I was able to share and discuss some of our Enterprise practice with other schools, and have a “buddy” school to share emails. One element of this will be for a class to share some of their enterprise work, as I found Enterprise was already established and embedded within the Australian education system.

Bibliography

Barber, Professor Michael: (2000) the Very Big Picture (in Improving Schools Volume 3 Number 2)

Bloom, Benjamin: (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Cairncross, Francis (1997) “The death of distance”

Covey, Stephen R: (1989, 2004) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Davies, Howard: (2002) A review of Enterprise and the Economy in Education

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Esland, Geoff: (1990) Education, Training and Employment (Volume 2 The Educational Response)

Gibbs, A.A (1987) Enterprise Culture – its meaning and implications for Education and Training

Heifetz, R (2003) “The Adoptive State” (NCSL)

Leitch, Lord Sandy: (2006) Review of Skills, Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills.

Lewin K. (1951) 'Field Theory in Social Science', Harper and Row, New York

Rotherham Ready Briefing Papers Number 2 “Primary schools and enterprise education”.

The Smith Institute (2004) edited by Ed Balls, John Healey MP & Cathy Koester: Starting them Young: Creating a culture of enterprise for all

Stoll and Fink: (1996) Changing Our Schools OUP

TDA: (2008) The little book of managing change

Watkins, Chris (1996) in “Enhancing internal capacity: Leadership for learning” NCSL

Reading and learning table

Title and author How it added to my understanding

Leitch (2004)

Barber (2000) The Very Big Picture

Watkins (1996) Leadership for learning

Cairncross (1997)

Skills and the economy – provided the Big Picture of why skills are increasingly important to enable people and the country to survive and thrive in a fast changing, competitive and global market.

Believe that employment opportunities for those entering the workforce looking for semi or unskilled occupations will find it increasingly difficult as the nature of employment changes rapidly. Many people will need more transferable skills as they may change their occupation many times.

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Davies (2002)

Gibbs (1987)

Enterprise Education – provides an overview of how enterprise learning can be incorporated within the curriculum and practical suggestions for underpinning it with careful planning, funding, and business partnerships to make it effective.

Gibbs lists the 12 ‘entrepreneurial attributes’ which reflect the 13 key entitlements reflected in the Rotherham Ready package.

Lewin (1951)

Covey (1987)

Heifetz (2003)

TDA (2008)

Stoll and Fink (1996)

Leading and Managing Change – different theorists who demonstrate effective leadership strategies, such as identifying driving and restraining forces when planning and implementing a change programme; and then providing people with opportunities to try new practices in order to understand the new change and buy into it themselves in order to adapt. Only when people can see the benefits for themselves, and to move the responsibility to the stakeholders, will a change eventually become the reality rather than the aspiration.

Accessing Peer support and guidance

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Name of person

Role Impact on project

Sharon Wadsworth

Secretary for Corus Steel Our initial business partner with the Make £5 Blossom project; and then persuaded her “higher powers” to allow us to keep the £150 so we could use that to roll out the Make £20 Blossom at whole-school level.

Also, came into school on several occasions to support the after-school club with advice around the practicalities of setting up a business venture, such as how to create order forms / write letters to other businesses for help towards costs.

Catherine Brentnall

Rotherham Ready project officer

Formed links at the early stages of this project; and observed one of my enterprise lessons giving positive feedback.

Assisted in supporting me to complete this academic study by sharing some of her sources and acted as a sounding board to help channel my ideas.

Becky Mollart Rotherham Ready

School liaison officer

Observed some of our Enterprise projects in school (Make £5 Blossom), and has been a useful contact for showcasing some of our work at various events in Rotherham. Has also given us the opportunity to become part of the pilot group for the Young Entrepreneurs club.

Craig Grewcock University of Warwick - Excellence in Enterprise Education Award

Had an initial meeting where I aired my concerns about putting Enterprise into a whole-school agenda. He calmed my fears, and gave advice to show how this could be achieved, which I successfully went on to do!

David Silvester Head Teacher David has fully supported my enthusiasm for Enterprise and helped me to overcome some of the difficulties as we tried to embed it at whole-school level, giving me the freedom to try new approaches both with my own class and with whole staff. He has provided me with a number of platforms to enable me to share my vision with parents, staff, pupils and governors; and has listened to my concerns and looked for ways to overcome them.

Reg Tooth Sheffield Hallam University –

Division of Education and Humanities CPD Team

Supported at core group meetings providing necessary advice and consultation regarding Higher Education requirements to complete this project.


Appendices

Appendix 1 – Case study “Effective Communication” lesson observation by Catherine Brentnall

Appendix 2 – Enterprise Statement for our school

Appendix 3 – Enterprise Policy

Appendix 4 – Children’s evaluations following the Make £20 Blossom project

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Appendix 5 – Pupil’s views feedback and evaluation forms

Appendix 6 – Staff views feedback and evaluation forms

Appendix 7 – Parent’s views feedback and evaluation forms

Appendix 8 – Examples of enterprise taught as part of the curriculum in medium-term planning

Appendix 9 – Photographs displaying key skills around school

Appendix 10 – Presentation to governors notes

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Planning and evaluating a new enterprise ... - Ready Unlimited · (Source: Rotherham Ready Briefing...

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