Malet Lambert - Environmental Enterprise Challenge

100 twelve and thirteen year olds from Malet Lambert School in East Hull took part in the Hull Environmental Enterprise Challenge in the traditional and historic setting of the Guildhall. The students were given a secret brief to come up with a business idea and then promote this to a group of judges chaired by Claire Young. Students chosen for the activity were from a variety of abilities but had already demonstrated enterprising skills by showing a positive attitude, punctuality and good attendance in school. As an ice breaker the students had to build a free standing tower out of string, spaghetti and tape and place marshmallow on the top the winning team were given a small prize from Hull Ready.

Working in groups of five, students had to decide on roles including managing director, finance, IT, marketing & PR as they had to take on the role of top-flight marketing consultants to design an App for an I Phone in order to promote Hull and encourage people to be environmentally friendly?

At the start of the challenge the students were told about how smart phones and tablets are now common place in society with many people owning some type of handheld device and that it is said there is an app for everything. From news to weather, business to pleasure. Apps allow people to have instant access to array of information or entertain at a touch of a button. As the students developed their concepts the Judges were looking at the App and concept the students came up with as well looking at how each team used the ‘Big 13’ enterprise skills

Students then had to explain their idea, design a marketing campaign, calculate the cost of both making the product and selling it and finally, identify a target market. Following these deliberations, and most challenging of all, they had to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from local organisations.

Eight teams presented their ideas to the judges. The teams were as follows:



1 Amazing Applet
2 Saucy Jelly fish
3 Slaz
4 MLGEW (Ecolympics)
5 Enviro Girls
6 KAHOM
7 Future
8 Five stars


The Judges

Kenton Robins, the Institute of Directors
Councillor Helene O'Mullane, Portfolio Holder, Children's Services
Jim Harris Centre Manager, St Stephen’s Shopping Centre
Vanessa Harvey-Samuel Head of Localities & Learning, CYPS Hull City Council
Andrew Morton – Account Director Footprint Renewables
Claire Young – Chair of Judges

The eight top teams were awarded a range of vouchers from popular High Street stores. These were sponsored by NPS- Humber, Hull Training, the Co-operative Group, St Stephen’s, City Works, KC, Force-7 and Rotherham Ready. After much deliberation and discussion the winning team was announced. The team were Future who won £400 worth of vouchers as they were considered to have fulfilled all elements of the brief as well as giving an excellent presentation, MLGEW (Ecolympics) came second and won £200 worth of vouchers with KAHOM coming third winning £150 in vouchers, than 3 teams Enviro Girls, Amazing Applet and Slaz winning £100 in vouchers each and Five Stars and Saucy Jelly Fish won 350 in vouchers each

At the end of the event, all teachers, students and business volunteers were asked to complete an evaluation, the results of which clearly showed that the event had been a success. Teachers in particular felt that the event had significantly developed students’ enterprise capabilities as set out in Hull’s Big 13 Enterprise Skills. The winner of £20 in vouchers at this event for completing the evaluation was Megan who wrote “I liked designing our App. It was a good activity to show our creativity skills. I didn’t like the spaghetti challenge because our tower kept falling over. Also our speech was good bit I was shaking because I was nervous”

Thanks also to Mike, Graham, Colin, Blair, Stephen and his colleagues, Blair all the judges and all the young people who took part.