Schools scoop awards in major competition
Teams from two Horsham schools are among the winners of local rounds of a major international schools’ business competition.
Teams from Millais School and Collyer’s College took part in the contest known as Young Enterprise.
A team called Respire from Collyer’s won the Best Marketing Award and a team called Letterbox from Millais won the Best Customer Service Award.
Judging of the competition went digital for the first time this year because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Young Enterprise – which is supported by Horsham District Council – challenges students to set up a company and run it like a normal business.
They get support from local business volunteers who provide advice and guidance throughout a six-month process.
The competition initially starts at a local level – the Horsham, Crawley and MidSussex area schools pitted their ideas and business abilities against each other over the length of the academic school year to date for 2020.
The competition then moves to county level, then regional, national and on to European and global levels.
Judges of this year’s local level contest were Kate Bennett, manager of East Grinstead Business Partnership, Rex Whittaker, long-serving businessman from the construction industry, and young entrepreneur and former Young Enterprise participant, Harry Daymond.
They were also joined by the chairman of the board Leigh Chambers who manages employment programmes for Horsham District Council and Young Enterprise manager Matt Ryan.
Six schools took part this year. As well as Millais and Collyer’s in Horsham, there were four school companies from Mid Sussex: Imberhorne, Sackville, Warden Park and Hurstpierpoint College.
The school companies had to plan, trade, market and develop their businesses over the six month period and at the end of this period, prior to judging, they had to submit a business report and provide a presentation and images of their products on a trade stand.
The Best Company Award went to Bitki of Imberhorne School from East Grinstead, who made and sold terrariums – goldfish bowls filled with cacti and succulents sourced locally.
Runner Up was RECO from Hurstpierpoint College, with their soft toy handmade from recycled clothes. They won the Sustainability Award category for their products.
Both Bitki and RECO will now go forward to the county finals.