East Sussex schoolchildren are today to participate in the UK’s first ever Young Enterprise Tenner Relay at Hailsham Community College. The pupils have used their business acumen to set up stalls selling accessories such as mobile phone cases, jewellery and bangles. Others will be operating their own shoe shine business and there will even be a mini cinema.
The Young Enterprise Tenner Relay will see a £10 note travel the length of the country, challenging school children along the way to turn it into more money by doing something creative and enterprising.
The relay marks the launch of this year’s Tenner Challenge, Britain’s biggest nationwide enterprise competition for young people, which will see over 25,000 school pupils across the UK competing to turn their £10 into a larger sum of money over a period of a month.
The children of Hailsham Community College in East Sussex invested their £10 to start up their micro businesses and also used their business plan to get “loans” from teachers and investors.
The pupils have decided to donate the total money raised to the Winston’s Wish, a charity that supports children who have suffered bereavement.
Student Emil Edghouch, 17, says, “Being given a physical £10 note makes the event very real and on the back of this we have realised how important good negotiation and selling skills are.
You could say Business is booming in Hailsham Community College!” Simon Mills, Head of Business at Hailsham Community College says, ““The Tenner Challenge is a wonderful opportunity for Hailsham students to show their enterprising qualities. The whole concept is akin to lighting a firework of possibilities in their minds. They’ve had a range of creative ideas and it is great to see such enthusiasm.” Nusrat Ghani, Conservative candidate for Wealdon will be present at the event and says: “The Tenner Relay project is a great way of getting young people engaged in enterprise and encouraging creativity, leadership, teamwork and business sense – real world skills.
The students at Hailsham Community College have a huge task of making a profit from £10 in 24 hours and this project is being supported in schools so teachers and students can work together on enterprise, finance and business strategy whilst having fun.” Michael Mercieca, Chief Executive of Young Enterprise said: “The Tenner Relay is aimed to unite like-minded students from different regions of the country to participate on one team towards a charitable cause, but most importantly to have fun while doing it.
“We want the relay to provide a platform for the main competition and help unleash the potential of young people in Britain by inspiring ideas and creativity.”
The relay will visit ten regions of Britain between February 4th and February 28th including schools in Glasgow, Durham, Wakefield, Lincoln, Chester, Wales, Nottingham, Northampton, East Sussex and London.
On February 28th the relay will end at the Bank of England where Chris Salmon, the Bank of England’s Chief Cashier, will present a cheque for the total profit made by the ten relay schools.
Registration for schools looking to participate in Tenner 2014 is now open via the Tenner website www.Tenner.org.uk
Entries close on Friday 28th February 2014, with the competition running from Monday March 3rduntil Monday 31st March 2014.
Follow the Relay at www.tenner.org.uk/relay
