The Form 8 classroom was transformed into a boardroom at Sunninghill School this week with pupils pitching their business ideas to a selection of fearsome local business entrepreneurs.
The Lion’s Lair idea, based on the popular BBC2 series, Dragon’s Den, is to give Form 8 pupils the chance to work collaboratively on new business concepts. Sunninghill has been running the event for a number of years and this year saw some of the best product ideas and pitches yet. These included personalised water bottles, dyed T-shirts, chocolate emoji’s, frozen juice lollies and para cord accessories.
Deputy Head (Academic) at Sunninghill, Sue Brunt, said, “The Lion’s Lair project, which runs from February to June, takes our pupils out of their comfort zone working in a business environment. It affords them the opportunity to apply their personal learning and thinking skills which underpin the ethos at Sunninghill and apply these skills to real life business situation. Additionally it allows them to acquire new life skills with workshops on marketing, finance and presentations.”
Sunninghill pupil, Orlagh (from the winning team Paratwist), said, “It was great fun working together to come up with interesting ideas for a business but it was a bit scary having to present to the Lions. Our idea was to make para cord keyrings and bracelets. We had lots of pre-orders and then sold out at the Summer Fayre. The Lions loved our product and thought that we could make it into a real business.”
One of the Lions, Vicki Fernyhough said, “This is a great event to be involved with and all the teams at Sunninghill were excellent – you could tell how much preparation they had put in. Hopefully our feedback has inspired them to keep working hard on their business ideas (and their school-work) so that they can be the next big thing!”
The winning team have now gone back to the classroom to continue with their school work but we think that you should keep an eye out for them as business stars of the future.
