Young Enterprise Business Fair at St. Anne’s Upper Primary

For the second year running Year 6’s at St. Anne’s Upper Primary School have embraced the Fiver Challenge programme by Young Enterprise with a young entrepreneurs’ Business Fair taking place on Tuesday in their school hall.

The Fiver Challenge consists of children starting their own businesses with a £5 start-up capital. Children worked in groups of between 3 and 6 children and some teams chose to pool their £5 so they had a larger amount of starting capital.

As part of the challenge children had to think of a potential business idea that they could develop. Children had to then do market research on the viability of the business, including designing questionnaires and surveying members of the general public which they did in Main Street.

Children also got to design their own business logos and names, write a business plan, deliver a sales pitch and finally create their own business stall for St. Anne’s very own business fair where they would sell their products/ services.

The project saw the children have master-classes with business experts as well as a Young Enterprise team from Gibraltar College called Multisportz who are participating in the current Company Programme.

“The Year 6’s have really grown as professionals and the standards have risen with children and teachers taking valuable lessons from last year’s pioneering programme,” said a statement from the school.

“The pop-up shops were incredibly professional with some teams choosing to wear a specially designed uniform matching their business ideas. Businesses ranged from penalty shoot-outs, to uniquely created perfumes, key-chains, book-marks, jewellery and photo booths.”

“One team went over and above and called local fruit company Gib-Maroc so that they would supply the fruit for their smoothie pop-up shop.”

“They even managed to convince the company to donate fruit to them in order to increase their profit margins.”

“Another team realised that they could make money between them and offered to be a second team’s supplier, making money even before they went on to the selling event at the St. Anne’s Business fair.”

“The project has also helped educate children about finances, helping them learn all about investments, profits, losses, taxes etc: Financial education they would otherwise not have received, with the opportunity to use real money funded by the local Young Enterprise branch,” the statement added.

After Tuesday’s selling event, children will be evaluating their journey on the Fiver Challenge where they get the opportunity to reflect on their learning and think about how they will apply lessons learnt to their everyday lives.

The programme ended on Friday with an award ceremony for the winners with the most sustainable business, best Logo, best Business stall, most innovative business, most inspiring Individual, best sales pitch and best team.

Head Teacher of the school, Lizanne Andrews, added: “St. Anne’s Upper Primary firmly believes that every child should have the opportunity to cultivate an enterprising mindset and acquire essential money management skills from a young age.”

“The Fiver Challenge serves as a catalyst for this mission by providing children with firsthand experience in entrepreneurship, thereby bringing subject learning to life and fostering the development of enterprise and financial capabilities.”

“The Fiver Challenge has been a great initiative for our students, providing them with invaluable skills that they can carry forward into their future lives."