Our Year 10 Enterprise students had a positive and enriching experience when meeting with local entrepreneurs last week.
These real-world interactions provide invaluable insights and practical knowledge that go beyond what traditional coursework or online research can offer.
Jeremy Wilson from Lakeland Climbing Centre, Charlotte Smith from The Pheasant, Allithwaite; Colin Dulson from Number 19, the Wine Bar in Kendal, and Rebecca Ladell from Milne Moser Solicitors not only allowed the students to gather evidence for their coursework but also gave them the chance to delve into the entrepreneurial mindset.
The discussion points included:
- Aims and activities of a business
- Skills and characteristics of entrepreneurs
- Market research they do to understand their customers and competitors
- External influences on the business
- The businesses’ future opportunities and threats
Here are some of the comments from our students following the event:
“It was really useful to be able to talk to the entrepreneurs because this gave me direct quotes for my controlled assessment. You can’t really get skills and characteristics of an entrepreneur from the website”.
“Talking to the entrepreneur from the climbing wall gave me new ideas about careers”.
“I hadn’t really thought about the need to focus on different groups of consumers and how you could focus on them in a wine bar”.
“It’s interesting that businesses don’t think of themselves as doing market research but they do all the time by looking at reviews”.
“It was interesting to hear about how it wasn’t just about profit but helping people in the community”
Thanks to the participating businesses and well done to all the students.