The team from Enabling Enterprise visited the Global Career Company offices again this week, this time with over 20 children from the John Perryn Primary School. This proved to be yet another fun packed day where the children were tasked with creating a celebration event for the Global Career Company team. THe Enabling Enterprises team have kindly agreed to share the following blog on their group’s experience at Global Career Company:
To launch their enterprise programme for the new school year, twenty Year 4 students from John Perryn Primary School were lucky enough to spend the day at Global Career Company in Hammersmith. Global Career Company is the global leader in recruitment excellence for the development of emerging markets and throughout the day, the Year 4 students were joined by seven knowledgeable and supportive employees who helped them with their challenge.
“A brilliant day. It really opens the students’ horizons.” (Year 4 teacher)
The Enterprising Challenge
So, what was their challenge for the day? Students were assigned the role of event planners and had to plan an awards event for the employees of Global Career Company to reward them for all their hard work. Before they could get started though, team names had to be chosen. Team members listened carefully to each other and shared their ideas to come up with fantastic names such as the alliterative “Dynamite Dashers” or the very relevant “Global Event Stars”.
Find Out More
With team names chosen, the students now had a chance to find out a bit more about Global Careeer Company through a quiz and by interviewing different employees. Not only were students looking for this information but they also wanted to conduct some market research to see what the volunteers would like as their awards event. “I’ve learned about the people that work here, it was really interesting to hear their ideas for the party.” (Year 4 girl)
Party Planning
Now that teams had an idea of what the Global Career Company employees would like as their awards event they worked as a team to brainstorm ideas for the theme, entertainment, food and prize.
“My favourite bit was sharing everyone’s different ideas for the food we could have at the party.” (Year 4 girl)
With exciting themes such as James Bond, the Oscars, the Victorians and the Caribbean chosen, students then had to use their problem solving skills to decide how they were going to spend their £12,000 budget. The “Party Poppers” used their market research well and decided to spend a large chunk of money on their food as they had found out earlier that the volunteers would like to eat curry and ice-cream.
But suddenly there was a newsflash! The budget had been cut by £3,000 and students had to go back to their teams and rethink their choices. “Business Stars” worked really well as a team at this point to take it in turns to share ideas for how to reduce the budget and decided just to focus on decorations, food and entertainment.
“I like business and it’s really smart how you have a budget but you want people to enjoy themselves so you have to do your best with the money you have.” (Year 4 boy) …
Persuasive Posters and Pitches
After lunch, students set to work on creating eye-catching posters with really clear information about their awards events to encourage lots of employees to attend. “Dynamite Dashers” created really colourful posters to tie in with their Caribbean theme and they drew example outfits so that everyone knew the dress code.
Finally, it was time to prepare their persuasive presentations. Which team was going to convince the Global Career Company judges that they had planned the best awards event? The volunteers listened to each team’s practice pitch and gave feedback so that teams could improve their presentation. “Global Event Stars” listened carefully to their volunteer and made a real effort to improve their eye contact with the audience after their first practice. The parent who had accompanied the students noted how important today was in preparing the children for the next stage in their lives; being able to present is a vital skill not only in secondary school but in the world of work too.
The Top Team
All the presentations were brilliant and the judges had a difficult decision to make when picking the winner. After a long deliberation they decided on the “Business Stars” because of their loud, clear delivery without scripts and for displaying super teamwork throughout the day.
A huge thank you must go to all the volunteers at Global Career Company for their time and support spent working with the John Perryn students and to the students themselves for showing such excellent problem solving and teamwork skills. A big thank you also to the teachers and parent from John Perryn for ensuring the day ran smoothly and was a success. What a fantastic day summed up by one of the student who did not want it to end! Contact us if you would like to get involved!
“I’d like to do more of this during the year!” (Year 4 boy) Well, you certainly will be doing in your lesson time projects in school.