Make Your Mark Blog

Bydales Technology College in Redcar  are hosting a Fashion Show, with staff and pupils showcasing fairtrade & sustainable clothing. The students have bought clothes from charity shops and have even designed fairtrade t-shirts.

Their aim is to raise awareness of green issues and make some money for school projects while doing so.

The fashion show  takes place  tonight at 7:30pm in Bydales Main Hall. The entrance fee is £2.

We can’t wait to hear how it goes!

Personal learning and thinking skills (PLTS), together with functional English, mathematics, and ICT, cover the areas of competence that are most often demanded by employers. 

PLTS are:

• team working
• independent enquiry
• self-management
• reflective learning
• effective participation
• creative thinking

For example, regarding TEAM WORKING…

One of the key aims of the Make Your Mark Club is to form student-led groups who can work together to make enterprising ideas happen.

The Make Your Mark Club offers a way to build competency in team working outside of lesson time, developing young people’s confidence in forging new working relationships.

Through the Make Your Mark Club, students can also:

• learn how to adapt to new situations – running live enterprises means that they will need to respond to opportunities, unexpetcted outcomes and take on new roles within the group.
• work towards a shared outcome – the ideas brought to life through the Make Your Mark Club should be agreed upon by all club members.
• develop a sense of personal responsibility: each young person should understand the Club’s project is their business, and therefore their responsibility, rather than anyone else’s.
• negotiate and solve problems in response to challenges they may encounter as they bring ideas to life.

Thousands of young people all over the UK are making their mark at school or college and joining the Make Your Mark Club.

If you would like to learn more about the Make Your Mark Club, please visit the website or get in touch with your local Make Your Mark team. If you’re based in the North East, that’s me! Call Julie on 01642 451826

A very warm welcome to our new North East Make Your Mark Clubs, many of whom will be officially forming in September.

We welcome to the enterprising students at:

St Bede’s Catholic Comprehensive School, Fyndoune Community College, Sunnydale Community College for Maths and Computing, The Oaks Secondary School, Greenfield School, Wolsingham School, Spennymoor School, Longbenton Community College, Cleaswell Hill School and City of Sunderland College.

These students will form part of a huge national network of schools and colleges, 43 of which are in the North East.

We also have Clubs registered at the following North East schools and colleges:

Abbey Hill School & Technology College, Ashdale, Carmel RC Technology College, Conyers School, , Hartlepool Sixth Form College, Haydon Bridge High School, Hirst Park Middle School, Kings Academy School, Kings Manor School, Longfield Comprehensive School, Norton Humanities College, Pathways, Prior Pursglove, St Bede’s Catholic Comprehensive School, St David’s RC Technology College, St Hild’s Church of England, St Mary’s Catholic Comprehensive School, St Michael’s Roman Catholic VA Comprehensive School, St Peter’s Roman Catholic VA Comprehensive School, Thornaby Community School, English Martyrs, Bydales Comprehensive School, Unity City Academy, Berwick Community High School, Castle View School, Catcote School, Darlington Education Village, Epinay School, Ferryhill B&E College, Marden High School, Nunthorpe School, Park View Community School and Staindrop Business & Enterprise College

I look forward to hearing all about the enterprising activities the students will be involved in over the coming school year!

If you would like to know more about the Club, feel free to get in touch or visit our Club website

I went to an interesting networking meeting this morning. VERY early start - I arrived at 6:30 - but it was well worth it!

The networking event was a BNI meeting (Stockton-on-Tees Chapter), with people from small and big businesses attending. I met people with connections to local schools as well as business people who would like to get involved in the campaign. My thanks to Sue Dixon for inviting me along. I met Sue a few weeks ago when I gave a presentation to the Stockton Business Forum.

For me, the meeting reminded me of what networking is all about - it’s not merely about collecting business cards, its about increasing your circle of influence, making good contacts that will allow you to work with others to achieve mutually beneficial goals. You’ll see a list of networking events on our main site should you wish to attend any networking meetings yourselves.

I am really keen on speaking to North East business people who would like to get involved in our campaign. Perhaps you would like to set real enterprise challenges e.g. design challenges or real business problems, support and guide young people in planning their own business ventures or show them what is possible for them in their future

What’s in it for you?

Getting involved will help provide evidence of quality standards such a IIP and will tick those Corporate Social Responsibility boxes, but it is about so much more than that.

You could be working with young agile creative minds, help develop the necessary skills in your future workforce, raise the profile of your business, generate lots of positive PR, provide your staff self development opportunities, market test some of your products with your potential customers and most importantly make a difference, have fun and take the opportunity for you to be inspired by our young people!

If you are based in the North East and would like to get involved, please get in touch:

Julie, Make Your Mark, North East 01642 451826

A group of North East students recently showed off their invention which makes cleaning the floor quick and fun.

The Mop-a-sock was a big success at the Durham Enterprise Celebration Event Ann and I attended last week. It is a cleaning product that you WEAR! You simply put a sock on each of your feet and clean as you walk! The re-usable socks are made either from recycled towelling (old bathrobes and towels) whereas the disposable ones are made from strong absorbent kitchen paper made from 100% recycled paper. 

Cleaning this way is not only fun and environmentally sound, but also great on your back – no bending or stretching required!

The students also got the chance to work on their sales pitch at the event as teachers, students, business people and office workers browsed their stall during the lunch break.

The Make Your Mark team are really impressed with the invention and wish the students every success in the future. We also look forward to hearing all about the next venture from the students and their ideas for Enterprise Week!

I’m pleased to announce that the Global Entrepreneurship Week promo film is now finished-finished. It’s a really excellent piece of marketing. The message is inspiring, the content useful and informative, the quality of the film itself is really high, and the voice-over artist sounds so much like Mariella Fostrup that it’s rumoured it actually is Mariella Fostrup.

Enterprising students from Park View Community School in Chester-le-Street have been raising money for developing countries through the sale of t-shirts and babygros. They formed ‘Happy Earth Co’ and put a new twist on the slogan t-shirt. Buyers can show the world that their t-shirt has helped buy a goat for an African community or their tea towel has helped buy a well. They can even dress their new born in an ethical babygro!

The students have taken a simple and popular idea and have turned it into a great business with a conscience by using their enterprising skills.

The idea for the company was developed by students who wanted to provide help for developing countries around the world. The students say ‘We decided to produce something that would appeal to a wide range of people in order to make a larger contribution towards developing countries. The overall aim of this project was to produce something that would sell locally, however provide a vast contribution globally’

Happy Earth Co plan to expand their business from giving goats to helping farmers make honey, providing chickens for eggs and much more.  Not satisfied with conquering the North East market, the students plan to use existing connections with charities such as Oxfam and to build new connections to grow the business further.

If you would like to learn more about the business or if you have a school business idea of your own, please get in touch!

Last week I got the chance to meet a super selection of Make Your Mark Club members. Nestled in the sunshine of South Bank, London, myself, some of the Make Your Mark-ers and club teachers and students got together to swap notes on enterprise, marvel at inspirational stories and eat their body weight in biscuits.

Highlights of this jam packed day included a funny take on making your first fortune by actual genius Sabirul Islam. And how Clippykits creator Calypso Rose took on the fashion world from her parent’s kitchen.

We also held a very swish awards ceremony. Big winners on the day were Edward Kirby and Poppy Hall at Staindrop school. Edward won for being a great team player, an attribute you will deffo need in business, and Poppy won for being a financial whizz, so well done them!

Staindrop was not the only school with winning talent, Mount Carmel school in Islington, North London also shone bright. Teachers Stephine Tuey and Chiara Bernesi won the Most Inspiring Teachers awards, and Tamoy Robinson won Most Inspiring Student. So a big congrats goes out to them!

But it wasn’t only the Club members awash with awards, our very own Make Your Mark-er Marilise Saghbini won Most Star Quality! We were all very proud, in fact I think I cried a little…..

The fun didn’t end there though, I had a mission to get some video interviews of the day and I was able to coerce some willing participants (victims) into giving me some really funny, interesting and informative tales about their Make Your Mark journey, so a big thank you to them!

After all that excitment I needed a long lay down, but I can’t wait for the next one, so see you there!

Diana x

PS: If you want to relive the fun of the meet up-and frankly who doesnt?-look out for the video clips being posted on the blog very soon.

A man has left 17 camels to his 3 sons. He has left half the camels to his eldest son, a third to his middle son, and a ninth to his youngest. The 3 sons have been trying to divide up their inheritance but can’t find a solution that satisfies them all since 17 cannot be divided by 2, 3 or 9…

The sons need to consult an enterprising person to find a solution.

Could YOU use your enterprising skills and a little bit of maths to help out the sons with their problem?

Please send your ideas to julie@makeyourmark.org.uk

Pam and I recently attending the launch of the UK’s 100^th Careers Academy.

Prior Pursglove College in Guisborough recently will be home to the 100^th Careers Academy this coming September. The Careers Academy model encourages partnerships between employers and teachers, giving fantastic opportunities to students to experience the world of work while studying at college.

Employers can get involved by becoming guru lecturers, delivering workshops and hosting student visits. More information about getting involved is available on the Careers Academy website. Alternatively you can contact James Austin, UK Careers Academy Coordinator at Prior Pursglove College:  j.austin@prior.pursglove.ac.uk

Make Your Mark looks forward to supporting Prior Pursglove on its journey.

I’ve been asked a few times about how the Make Your Mark club links in with Every Child Matters. There are just some of the ways:

Be Healthy – The values of the Make Your Mark Club will reinforce a healthy and responsible approach to enterprise, and to life.

Stay safe – Make Your Mark Clubs encourage responsible networking, and provide a safe place for young people to go outside of lesson times at school.

Enjoy and achieve – Make Your Mark clubs develop enterprise skills and encourage young people to make ideas happen.  They will apply learning from across the curriculum and have the space to learn by doing.  Club activity focuses on the interests and ideas of its members, and rewards such as an annual certificate will acknowledge their achievement and contribution.

Make a positive contribution – Make Your Mark Clubs are about making ideas happen in a group context.  The ethos of a MYM Club places an emphasis on the importance of each member contributing, and using the skills, talents and passions of individuals to achieve common goals.  

Achieve economic well-being – Through Make Your Mark Clubs we aim to embed enterprise culture, helping young people to discover their own understanding of economic values, and giving them experience of running enterprises of their own.  Also, through networking and mentoring, members of the MYM Club have the opportunity to learn about different industries and opportunities in life after education.

To find out more about the Club, please visit:

www.makeyourmarkclub.org

If you are in the North East, you can contact your local Make Your Mark office on 01642 451826/ julie@makeyourmark.org.uk

Julie and Ann from Make Your Mark were invited to a wonderful event on Friday. It was a celebration event of enterprise in education. Fun packed and informative we came away with empty pockets and a smile on our faces! (But also wondering if we would sleep after reading ghost stories written and sold Chilton primary school children!!)

Primary and secondary schools from all corners of County Durham came along to showcase their achievements. Just a few of the activities we saw…..Gainford Primary School brought home made fudge to sell. Staindrop Business & Enterprise College sold jewellery and jewellery boxes. The Oaks brought along vegetables from their allotment. Park View showcased their social enterprise and raised enough money at the event to give a goat to Africa! Sunnydale students amazed up with their Mandarin! Fyndoune showed off the most gorgeous goats milk and lavender soap which was produced from the animals on their school farm! Parkside sold hand made cards for every occasion. Greenfield School took pictures of the event and sold them to participants (both as traditional photos and as key rings).  Wolsingham School and Community College showed off their invention which makes cleaning the floor quick and fun…. More to come on this in the next few days!!!!

Each school made a presentation on their projects to a panel of judges and the audience watched and voted on the top 3 (The Oaks, Park View and Parkside). It was a very hard choice as all three teams were articulate, creative and enthusiastic. Park View and their innovative social enterprise were victorious.

Pupils not only spent the day selling their produce/ services on market stalls and presenting but also took part in an Eco Challenge. They were given a box of materials and had just one hour to build a model of the ultimate eco friendly school. The standard of work was exceptional and I really didn’t envy the judges! The models included solar panels, windmills, farms and even integrated hydro electric power stations!!

Many thanks for Chris Carling, Enterprise in Education Advocate for inviting us along and to Chris, Lester, Jeanette and Sandra for making us very welcome.

Well done to all the students who took part and a warm welcome to our new members of the Make Your Mark Club. We can’t wait for the pictures of the day and look forward to writing more about our enterprising North East students!

Make Your Mark was in Newcastle last week to talk to students about the importance of networking.

Pure Potential is the only independent organisation that helps tens of thousands of bright students from the state sector with their journey through UCAS forms, university life, student finance and career choices.

There were presentations on how to write personal statements, how to impress at interviews and how to budget.

Make Your Mark made a presentation to the students on the importance of networking. ‘Innocent Smoothies’ was discussed as a case study on the importance of networking. Did you know that the founders of the business decided to give up the traditional route to graduate careers and set up a smoothie making business? They were three young people with no money and therefore getting a new business off the ground looked like a tall order. So…they asked for help. They thought about their personal network, and got in touch with everyone they knew, asking for help with their business idea, and by contacting business contacts, family and friends they eventually met an investor who gave them the essential start-up cash they needed to make their idea happen.

The students at the Pure Potential event were encouraged to think about THEIR network of friends, family, neighbours.. and put a plan in place to start building it.

Three simple ways to make networking work:

Your Profile: Get known and make sure people remember you.

Good will: Create good will and people are more likely to support you.

Keep in touch: Network to build contacts – 80% of opportunities come from people you know!

Are you a student in the North East who wants to make their mark at school or college? Why not set up a Make Your Mark Club?

Contact Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826 for more information.

Yesterday we hosted an event to unleash ideas for Enterprise Week 2008 at Beamish Hall. The day saw lots of networking amongst teachers, business people and those involved in enterprise delivery.

Pamela Hargreaves, Head of Campaign, welcomed our guests before Chris Spavin gave a presentation on Global Entrepreneurship Week and many of our guests shared ideas they have about how they plan to give Enterprise Week’s events an international flavour. Durham Community Business College are interested in ethical fashion. St Michael’s School in Billingham will be handing over Enterprise Week 2008 to the students who will be arranging events with an ethical twist. Staindrop Business and Enterprise College will be investigating why China’s economy is booming. Students will be looking at products that are made in China and investigating why they are made there. The students plan to visit China and go into a joint venture with a school there.

Tori James gave an inspirational speech. She was the first ever Welsh female to climb Mount Everest and shared the highs and lows of her adventure.

Tori also talked about Make Your Mark Clubs for schools and colleges. The Make Your Mark Club is for young enterprising people who want to make ideas happen while they’re at school or at college. It’s easy to run your own Make Your Mark Club and you can use this site to swap ideas or share information about your club. Want more information? Contact Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826

Guests were then treated to 2 workshops……

One was delivered by Emma Farrell. This was all about Web Magic! She showed us how to utilise wikis, blogs, virals and other digital marketing techniques. Would you like to take a look at our twitter feed?

One was delivered by Phil Tulba. He showed us the exciting world of social enterprise. He explained what a social enterprise is and gave examples. We watched the ‘Trailblazers’ DVD. Copies of the Trailblazer’s magazine can be downloaded on line

Phil informed our guests about the One Water Challenge. This year, One Water and Make Your Mark have teamed up to launch the One Water Challenge for schools in the UK. Teams of schoolchildren (aged 14-19) will be given bottles of One Water and just one month in which to sell as many bottles as possible, in as innovative a way as possible. They could get them signed by a celebrity, or turn the bottle label into a piece of artwork, or sell them at school or at their parent’s workplace. The idea is to use all of their creativity and enterprise skills to sell One Water. After repaying the original cost of the water, what they do with the profit is up to them. They can keep it, invest it in more water, or even pursue another idea. Schools will be encouraged to sign up in September and bottles of water will be delivered to students for Social Enterprise Day (Thursday November 20, 2008) during Enterprise Week and Global Enterpreneurship Week. More information available at: http://www.enterpriseweek.org.uk/getinvolved/onewater

Guests could also take part in ‘Talkaoke’ – known as the ‘doughnut’ of chat, is a mobile chat show which invites participants to sit down and air their views around the Talkaoke table, as well as North East Bond’s Launch Pad which isdesigned to encourage all kinds of people to set up in business or to create a social enterprise.

Enterprise Week 2008 is fast approaching and our new site went live this week.

Download resources and presentations:

Social Media Presentation

Global Entrepreneurship Week Presentation

Web Magic

Enterprise Week 2008 overview - North East

Many thanks to One NorthEast, our speakers and our guests would made yesterday’s meet up a great success!

Are you a business person based in the North East? Would you like to help inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs?

Make Your Mark Enterprise Clubs are:

A dynamic network of student-led enterprise clubs, currently over 300 nationally, 35 of which are in the North East

Open to students in schools & colleges and are completely free

A great route into schools for employers and a great way to raise your own profile in TV and get positive PR

What the Make Your Mark Enterprise Clubs need from employers:

Real enterprise challenges from you e.g. design challenges or real business problems

Opportunities to talk to you and to learn from your business experiences & expertise

Support and guidance in planning their own business ventures

For you to inspire them about what is possible for them in their future

What’s in it for you?

A chance to

Work with young agile creative minds

Help develop the necessary skills in your future workforce

Raise the profile of your business

Generate lots of positive PR

Offer your staff self development opportunities

Market test some of your products with your potential customers

and …… an opportunity for you to be inspired by our young people!

If you would like to get involved, please contact Julie:

Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826