Enterprising schemes wow project judges

Primary school pupils have proven their skills in business at the conclusion of a young enterprise project.

The Enterprising Futures project was funded by a £10,000 grant from Devon County Council, and delivered by the business department at Exmouth Community College.

It has seen pupils at Exeter Road, Marpool, St Peter’s Budleigh, Lympstone and Bassetts Farm primary schools setting up and running their own businesses, support by school staff and post-16 students from the college.

It concluded with a celebration day held at the college, for which pupils had to prepare a business report, and set out a trade stand to tell their story.

They had a number of interviews at these stands with the judging panel, before giving a formal presentation to the assembled crowd of fellow pupils, parents, governors, teachers, post-16 students, and various members of the local business and political community, including Exmouth mayor Bill Nash.

The judging panel of Gary Nichols, of Optimise 4, Victoria Gage, of Devon County Council, Ian McQueen, Chairman of Exmouth Chamber of Commerce, Nigel Wilkinson, of WNW Digital, Col Hancock, of Young Enterprise, and Steven Hawkins, of RBS/Natwest, had a very difficult task in selecting the winners, but eventually chose St Peter’s as the overall winner, with each of the other schools picking up at least one category award.

It was then left to the judges, together with college principal Tony Alexander, to present the awards and prizes to the winning teams.

A college spokesman said the next stage in the project would be to get more local schools involved by establishing an Exmouth Enterprise Education board in the summer term, intended to further strengthen the links between education and the local business community.