Both 5th classes in St. Brigid’s N.S. were delighted to participate in ‘The 2017 Junior Entrepreneur Programme’. The main focus of this programme is to introduce the children to entrepreneurship and to explore their baseline understanding about who an entrepreneur is and what an entrepreneur does.
They presented their business ideas in small groups to potential investors in the ‘Dragons Den’. Examples of some of their business ideas included: making smoothies, making t-shirts and personalised mugs and recycling tins to make pencil holders. The Dragons/Investors chose one winning idea from each of the classes. The winning ideas were Brigid’s Bands from Mr. Scanlon’s class and St Patrick’s Day Badges from Mrs. O Donnell’s class.
Getting Started:
The children created their own J.E.P. calendar and each child invested €5 of his/her own money into their business venture. The Dragons also invested €50 into each business. Each class had €200 to get their business started.
Production:
Brigid’s Bands and Badges was the name of their joint enterprise and the cost of producing a band was €0.35 per unit and the cost of producing a badge was €0.30. The pupils very cleverly took advance orders for the bands and badges and weren’t left with too much unsold stock at the end of the venture. Both products were based on St Patrick’s Day.
Advertising:
Advertisements’ grabbed customers’ attention with the catchphrase ‘Love our brand, Buy our band!’Children designed colourful posters for our Showcase Day which was held in the Parkway Shopping Centre on the 16th March 2017.
Showcase Day:
The children worked diligently to produce their bands and badges to a high standard in preparation for the Showcase Day. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience of selling and bartering with passers-by.
Citizenship: The children donated €1000 of the profits to Kelly Hadfield, founder of an NGO called ‘Ghana Medical Help’ which help supply critical medical supplies to hospitals in Ghana.
