Students get ahead with a hat to take the top prize in competition
A STUDENT-RUN hat company scooped four accolades including the top prize at the Leeds Enterprise Advisory Programme (LEAP) awards, which recognise entrepreneurship among West Yorkshire’s secondary school pupils.
LEAP is a social enterprise which enables students to set up their own companies for a school year.
The students, between 14 and 19, had to raise their own share capital, choose and make or buy a product, write a business plan and market the product.
At the end of the year teams had to present their ‘company’ and its results to a panel of business advisers and prepare an annual report with financial accounts.
Mad Hatters, run by 10 Year 12 students from The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL), won LEAP’s top prize, the Westcom Networks Award: Best LEAP Enterprise Company 2018, for their hat business.
They also won awards for best company report, best trade fair marketing and best company presentation.
Their range of hats changed with the seasons – stylish woolly hats in winter, then individually tie-dyed bucket hats as hopes grew of warmer weather.
The students all took positions in the company such as marketing, finance or social media director.
Managing director Nathan Rockley said: “Although I knew LEAP would take me outside my comfort zone, it was an opportunity I decided to take as I could only benefit from it. The whole experience has been eye-opening for me, showing what a group of friends can achieve through teamwork.”
Mad Hatters was one of 18 companies participating in LEAP this year, involving 200 students from GSAL, Bradford Girls Grammar School, Allerton High School, Ralph Thoresby School and Woodhouse Grove School. Such is the benefit of LEAP to students that four additional schools have already signed up for next year’s programme.