This term Norwich School Partnerships and Business Enterprise departments have welcomed the return of Mile Cross Primary School’s Year 6 for the Dragons’ Den project. Now in its third year, the project is a Dragons’ Den style challenge for the young pupils to work in teams to develop a business idea, helped by Norwich School Lower 6 Business Enterprise pupils acting as mentors.
The groups worked with their mentors in a series of workshops at Norwich School, run by Mrs Dean, Mr Manton and Mr White, our Business Enterprise team, where they were tasked with coming up with their business ideas.
The finale took place at Norwich School at the start of December, where the teams pitched to real-life Dragons: Nova Fairbank, Chief Operating Officer of Norfolk Chamber of Commerce and Caroline Jarrold, Community Affairs Advisor at Jarrolds and current Sheriff of Norwich, along with Mr White, Norwich School’s resident business expert. The pupils’ ideas ranged from jewellery which disguised a safety alarm to alert police if the wearer feels unsafe, some washable football boots to make muddy boots a thing of the past and customiseable keyrings.
The winning group, named “Electro-Abs” designed a bike which can be used indoors and outdoors with the ability to power the user’s home appliances when the bike is ridden. The group gave a very professional pitch and gained extra points for pledging to give a proportion of profits to charity.
Commenting on the finale, Nova Fairbank said:
“The students pitching in the Dragon’s Den have done an amazing job. Their presentations were well thought out and they had clearly done lots of work and research before presenting enthusiastic and interesting pitches. The Dragons had a truly difficult decision to select the winning bid and congratulations to ‘We Are Electro-Abs’ on their winning pitch. The talent and energy in the room was brilliant and I think we may have seen several future entrepreneurs! Well done to all the teams.”
Fellow Dragon, Caroline Jarrold said:
“It was so impressive to see the pitches from the students and the creativity of their ideas. It must have been quite a daunting situation for them and they did incredibly well in presenting their proposals and business plans. It is heartening to see a collaboration of this nature between the two schools and all of the pupils should be very proud of their achievements. I felt that we saw some really good signs of enterprise and imagination and hope that the students will look back on a day which gave them a great opportunity to work together, develop ideas and skills and build their confidence for the future.”
The Norwich School Business Enterprise pupils who took part were equally impressed with their mentee’s enthusiasm:
“The pupils listened really well and were very fun to work with, they had an endless stream of good ideas!”
“I really enjoyed the experience of teaching Business and listening to their creative ideas.”
We are looking forward to next year’s Dragons’ Den already!
