Last week, Year 8 pupils from Kingswood School took part in the Young Enterprise Morning and were immersed in workshops to develop their employability skills.
They received testimonials from experts that work in different sectors within the industry. Employers included: Lloyds Banking, HMRC, Civica, Capita and Hitachi Capital.
Each team of pupils carefully assessed the relative strengths of their teammates and were then challenged to design a new shoe business, focussing on pricing and branding.
Working closely with their industry mentors, each team developed a catchy brand and a novel shoe design, finishing with a one-minute pitch to the rest of the students and three judges.
The teams all produced high-calibre pitches, covering a wide variety of shoe businesses and awards were offered for innovation, team work, marketing and the delivery of their elevator pitch.
A number of teams were highly commended:
Eco Sole – they designed a shoe that converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, whilst heating your feet;
Halogen Ski Company – for their customisable ski boot;
All Size – who created ‘the shoe that grows with you’;
Tracker Trainers – whose shoes buzzed left or right like an inbuilt SatNav;
Flo – whose pitch Jasper expertly opened and team mates supported;
The overall winners for New Business of The Year 2019, were The Rubbish Shoe, for their unique shoe made from recycled materials, and their pitch to sell their premium product, The Really Rubbish Shoe!