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Claire Young, finalist of BBC1’s ‘The Apprentice’ was a special guest at Burgess Hill School for Girls at their latest careers conference.
The ‘Push Your Boundaries’ conference took place at the school on Wednesday 22nd September and was attended by Year 10 girls from Burgess Hill School for Girls, Oakmeeds Community College and St Paul’s Catholic College in Burgess Hill and Warden Park School in Haywards Heath.
Sales woman, Claire Young, became famous on Series 4 of the hit TV show ‘The Apprentice’ which is led by Lord Alan Sugar. Claire spoke to the students about her education and work for L’Oreal, Colgate and Superdrug. She described the reality of filming ‘The Apprentice’ and meeting famous figures such as Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, JLS and Gordon Brown.
Most importantly, Claire inspired the girls with her ideas for setting goals for the future and how to get there. Her own ventures are now concentrated on entrepreneurship and enterprise for young people.
The girls then took part in practical workshops which took them out of their ‘comfort zone’ to learn new skills. These included circus skills, debating, drumming, photo editing and yoga, all led by professionals in these fields, along with brick laying and car maintenance instructed by the school’s maintenance team.
The aim was to show girls the importance of being open to all opportunities and learning about themselves from their experiences.
Parents joined the event in the evening at the Porsche Centre Mid-Sussex. Dr Louise Makin, Chief Executive Officer of BTG (the fourth biggest Pharmaceutical Company on the London Stock Exchange), gave a motivating talk about having the right attitude towards work. She drew on her experiences of taking part in the British Three Peaks Yacht Race which her team won in 2008.
The event was also supported by six businesswomen working in the fields of marketing, sales, HR Recruitment and financial services, as well as the owner of a chain of Sussex pharmacies and the Chief Executive of Capital International based in Burgess Hill.
Headmistress, Ann Aughwane, commented “The feedback from the girls was extremely positive. Claire Young and Louise Makin were declared ‘Inspirational’ and we are grateful to them and the other contributors for giving their time to encourage the girls to Push Boundaries now and in the future.”