All Year 10 students took the opportunity to try out the business expertise they had gained on Wednesday by getting their teeth into another Enterprise Day on Friday.

Working closely with the school, First Partnership had arranged the BITZA Challenge, which requires students to work in groups to design, cost, manufacture and advertise an educational toy, using only the variety of bits and pieces they can “buy” from the “suppliers”, having arranged the necessary loans from the BITZA Bank. Little MemoriesTwo members of each group acted as accountants while the others worked on the design, marketing and production of the toys. The groups then had to attempt to present and sell their toys to “clients” by giving a short sales pitch to the facilitators, from which a winning team (“Little Memories”, pictured right) was eventually selected.

Amongst the various key areas of enterprise activity, this whole-day event encouraged teamwork and problem solving. Building on their previous experience students learned more about the way business operates and throughout the day there was a real buzz of activity, as the students clearly found the project completely engaging. Some were so enthusiastic about their projects that they even worked on through their lunch breaks!

Tracey Hills, of First Partnership, commented, “It was a real pleasure to be at Harrow Way. The students were very amiable and were all fantastic to work with. They produced some great ideas.”

Mr Parsons, Assistant Headteacher said, “This was another great enterprise event. Well done to “Little Memories” – and to all the Year 10 students who took part. They all did themselves proud. I’d like to say a special thank you to Tracey and Jackie from First Partnership and to all the “clients”, who had supported the teams throughout the day, who were all business professionals whose employers had kindly allowed them to give their time to support the event. There were representatives from Barclays Bank, BCOT, Connexions, Enham Employment Services, HSA, the Royal Navy, Sparsholt College and Twinings. A big “thanks” to them all”.