Monday - A Roller Coaster of a day for Unity students
A group of students from year 9 represented the school yesterday at the Blackpool Enterprise Challenge, run by the HERO project and hosted by the Pleasure Beach.
The team competed against other schools in the town in a challenge that saw them developing their team work, creative and communication skills to design a new roller coaster for Nickelodean land, an exciting new development planned for the Pleasure Beach.
Once they had designed their new ride, the students used their business acumen to develop a marketing strategy, branding and logo for the ride, taking inspiration from the Nickelodean character ‘Spongebob Squarepants’!
The students had just the kit to build a model of their new ride. KNEX roller coaster kits were kindly donated to the event by toy manufacturer, TOMY. Even the most experienced KNEX enthusiast had a problem solving challenge on their hands, as they turned their design into a physical structure.
The students had a thoroughly enjoyable day and faced a range of challenges that helped develop their enterprise skills.
Tuesday - Tangerine Football Challenge
Students from Unity College took part in the Tangerine Challenge, a real life problem set by Blackpool Football Club in partnership with the HERO project. Year 10 students were set the task of coming up with an idea to increase turnstile numbers at reserve matches with possible partnerships between the club and other members of the community.
Once they had their idea in just 100 words, the students were asked to come up with a piece of marketing material to promote it and write a pitch to sell their idea to the club.
Students will present their ideas to the football club at a special event on the 9th December when members of the Blackpool Football Club Community Trust will judge the entries. The winning team will receive football goodies and the chance to work with the Community Trust to put their idea into action.
Wednesday - GLEE
Year 10 & 11 students attended a special networking event at the Hilton Hotel. G.L.E.E. (Girls and Ladies Enterprise Event) was all about enabling the girls to talk to women in business and help them learn more about the world of work. The aspiration raising event, saw over 30 local business women give up their afternoons to come to the event and speak to the students.
Following informal networking, guest speaker, Kirsty Henshaw conqueror of BBC’s Dragon’s Den in 2010, talked about her own personal ‘rollercoaster’ of working life. She explained her own personal journey to success including how to deal with the highs and lows along the way.
Following this, the business women had the opportunity to speed network with and receive questions from the students.
Everyone really enjoyed the afternoon and a Unity student was quoted as saying “It’s been great. I found out loads about jobs that I never knew existed and I think I would like to start my own business in the future”
Thursday - Primary Enterprise
Unity College held a special enterprise day for year 6 students from Blackpool primary schools. 4 local primary schools attended the event and the day was split into three tasks.
Task 1 involved brainstorming ideas for a new key ring representing a country of the world. Some excellent ideas came out of the task including glow in the dark key rings and an Eiffel tower that played music.
Task 2 saw the students making a prototype of their keyring having calculated their costs and ‘shopped’ within their budget for a range of craft materials. Task 3 involved designing a poster to advertise their key ring.
The day proved to be very successful and students developed their team working, communication and financial literacy skills, whilst managing their own time and resources.
