Trainee Teachers deliver Enterprise to schools

Trainee teachers on the PGCE Business Education course at Edge Hill University in the north west of England, are using their entrepreneurial skills and experience to enable secondary students to develop their own enterprising skills. Working in small groups trainees work with individual schools to organise and deliver an Enterprise Day. Each school sets its own brief for the day which are then refined and developed by the trainees. Themes have been extremely broad, ranging from the Olympics 2012 to a catwalk event when students created ‘designer’ outfits from recycled materials. 

The trainees come from a wide range of backgrounds with a significant number having decided to come into teaching following a successful career in business. The skills that they have developed in the business world are then adapted to create an engaging and enhancing event.  This is a hugely demanding aspect of the course as a successful day requires creativity, organisational skills and the ability to work effectively as a team – including at those times when they are teaching at different schools in the North West.

For all the trainees there is a strong sense of achievement and pride in what they are able to deliver as well as giving them a great deal of experience in understanding what Enterprise Education is. For a number of trainees they are able to use this experience for their own professional development when they are teaching, having seen the benefits at first hand.

The secondary school students get the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills, using team working, problem solving and creativity in order to address the challenges that are incorporated in the day’s events.

Often they are amazed at their own abilities and those of their peers – and it is impressive to see young people discuss attitudes to risk and opportunities for success in such a mature way.  Students develop their confidence as well as a range of abilities that are immediately transferable into other contexts and feedback from schools is always extremely good.

For further information contact Helena Knapton at knaptonp@edgehill.ac.uk