Secondary Schools GEW 2011 in Hull

Young people from Hull secondary schools attended an Entrepreneurship Masterclass and pupils from Hessle High School. The Masterclass is designed to challenge young people to think about starting their own business as a career and becoming an entrepreneur. This is achieved by introducing the young people to local role models, as well as inspiring them through presentations, activities and discussion centred on their own life experiences, vision and achievements. The event began with a welcome by BBC presenter Blair Jacobs who outlined what the event was about and talked about the importance young people play in the future of the city of Hull. 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.The first inspiration of the day was provided by the day’s main guest speaker, international business woman and runner up in the BBC Apprentice series Ruth Badger who focused on the importance of having the right attitude in business and in life. During her presentation Ruth praised the city’s young people for their enterprising attitudes, in particular those that she had met whilst judging the Badger’s Sett Enterprise Challenge the night before.

As proof of this, the young people then heard from a variety of young local entrepreneurs including Hull’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Amanda Hartley of Amanda’s Blue Orchid, Ethan Gibson Impression 11 who set up business whilst still at College and Phil Benson of Xing Health told how discovering ‘smoothies’ had provided the inspiration to develop their business. All of these young entrepreneurs had received funding for their businesses from the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank.

By the afternoon, it was time to put some of the ideas from the morning’s presentations into practice. They were asked to develop a marketing concept for a random object given to them and to pitch this to the Badger’s Sett. Each group had 45 minutes to come up with the name of the product, the retail cost and suitable marketing material. It was then time to present to panel chair Ruth Badger and her fellow judges




The Badger’s Sett judges were:

Nick Hildyard Joint MD Arco
Sarah Longthorn  Founder Wedgewelly
Phil Vozza Managing Director NPS Humber
Ruth Badger
Cllr Helene O'Mullane Portfolio Holder Children Services
Richard Duxbury, Deputy Managing Director, Mail News & Media

Six teams were identified to present to the Badger’s Sett, with Ruth and her Badgers giving each team a real grilling before retiring to make their deliberations. Top of the pile came Olympic Fan Band from Hessle High School who won £500 donated by Arco. Second place, and £250 courtesy of NPS- Humber went to Dynamic Ring – Malet Lambert School whilst behind them came Ear Sport Probe from Andrew Marvell Business Enterprise College who won £150 donated by Hull FC Foundation Fourth and fifth spots went to Mexi wave from Trinity House School and Your Olympic Dream from Newland High School for Girls respectively, with i Blah of St Mary’s College taking sixth place. These three prizes of £100 worth of vouchers were donated by Tigers Trust, Force-7 and the University of Hull.

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.