Month: June 2024

Victoria Primary 6/7 S’mores and Hot Cocoa

Primary 6/7 children from Victoria PS took part in the Falkirk Social Enterprise Dragon’s Den event in November 2023. They pitched their social enterprise idea so well, that they won seed funding of £100 from the dragons. They wrote this blog post to tell everyone about their achievement.

We used the seed funding to organise an event in December for parents, carers and pupils in our school.  This took place at Christmas time, and we made and sold gingerbread men and candy cane gifts. We even had edible reindeer with twiglet antlers to give away free! Our food was so popular that we raised around £400. After the Christmas event we went around all classes to find out how to make our next event better. Some children told us to have a bigger choice of treats and to have more things that were free.

We decided to donate the money we made from these events to a charity called Victim Support Scotland (VSS).  We chose this charity because our school has been vandalised and VSS help anyone who has been affected by crime.

 

We took the advice of our fellow pupils then worked with primary 7M to organise more activities for our next event at Easter. We made Easter themed treats this time including cookie s’mores. We made sure that we had Halal food available and organised boxes so that those who were fasting for Ramadan would enjoy theirs at the right time. We sold hot chocolate, tea, coffee and cold drinks. Lots of our customers wanted water to drink and we had to keep going to get more to meet this demand. This was only one of the problems we had to solve, Another was not getting too stressed when long queues formed.  At this event we also held a raffle, and sold second hand books.

Our final event will take place on the second last day of term. We will make s’mores and cocoa for primary 7 parents and carers and primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils.

What have we learned from doing this social enterprise work?

  1. Counting and using money
  2. Responsibility
  3. Kindness
  4. Confidence in speaking to people
  5. Resilience (we learned from our mistakes to make the events get better each time)
  6. Problem-solving

How do we feel about getting a social enterprise award?

  • We feel good.
  • We feel proud that we have a Social Enterprise Award plaque in our school reception.
  • We loved using some of our earnings to treat our class to a Dominos pizza.

We would love to do more social enterprise next year when we are in primary 7. Thank you for reading this blog post about our award.

Social Enterprise Success for young people at Carrongrange High School

 

 

Young people in S 4 and 5 at Carrongrange HS received their Social Enterprise Academy(SEA) award at a glitzy ceremony in Edinburgh in June 2024. This builds on their 2023 Scotland’s Most Enterprising School Award and shows that enterprise is at the heart of the curriculum in Carrongrange. Young people and staff working across the school are involved in multiple enterprising experiences which include:

  1. Lifelong learning groups timetabled each Friday
  2. Three young enterprise teams programme groups working towards their SCQF level 3 qualification
  3. Running a “Cosy Cafe”
  4. Developing links with community organisations such as Cunningham Care Home and D2 Art Studio
  5. Forming a Makaton choir which has performed at Murrayfield Stadium

These experiences contribute to the ethos and life of the school and young people’s personal achievements – preparing them for life and work beyond school.

The social enterprise award preparations began when these various groups pulled together their various enterprises under the banner of “Caring Grange”.  A representative group of 11 young people delivered their pitch at the Falkirk Dragon’s Den event in November 2023. They received seed funding for the next phase of their fund raising in order to stage their Caring Grange event in February 2024. They were supported by their social enterprise adviser who was full of admiration for the variety and scope of their work.

Jamie is one of the young people who attended the SEA awards ceremony and has just moved into S6. He shared how busy it was in the Assembly Rooms venue on the day, and how the group set up their stall in the market place. He said that the group went on stage in front of around 500 people to receive their certificate and have their photo taken.

Although a representative group of young people were able to attend the Dragon’s Den and award ceremony, many senior phase young people were involved in the February Caring Grange event. It raised hundreds of pounds towards the cost of an electric, accessible school mini bus, whilst achieving its main purpose of bringing the wider community together,  and was so successful that it will become an annual event.

When asked how he felt about being part of the Caring Grange enterprise and what he’d learned, Jamie reported feeling good about the whole experience. He noted that he’d had to develop his selling, communication and money-handling skills. He also felt that he’d used his imagination and become part of his community. Mala is also in S6 and she also enjoyed the whole experience. She relished and was extremely good at her meeting and greeting role on the day of the Caring Grange event.