Kingswood School pupils learn employability skills from industry experts

Last week, Year 8 pupils at Kingswood School took part in the Young Enterprise Morning at the Pavilion and were immersed in workshops to develop their employability skills.

They also received testimonials from experts that work in different sectors within industry. Employers included: Lloyds Banking, HMRC, Civica, Capita and Hitachi Capital.

Each team of pupils had to carefully assess the relative strengths of their teammates and were then challenged to design a new shoe business, focussing on pricing and branding.

Working closely with their industry mentors, each team had to develop a catchy brand and a novel shoe design, finishing with a one-minute pitch to the rest of the students and three judges.

The teams all produced high-calibre pitches, covering a wide variety of shoe businesses and it was hard to decide who was worthy of the awards for innovation, team work, marketing and the delivery of their elevator pitch.

A number of teams were highly commended:

Eco Sole – they designed a shoe that converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, whilst heating your feet

Halogen Ski Company – for their customisable ski boot

All Size – who created ‘the shoe that grows with you’

Tracker Trainers – whose shoes buzzed left or right like an inbuilt SatNav

Flo – whose pitch Jasper expertly opened and team mates supported

The overall winners for New Business of The Year 2019, were The Rubbish Shoe, for their unique shoe made from recycled materials, and their pitch to sell their premium product, The Really Rubbish Shoe!

Miss Rolfe has thanked all staff that supported the Young Enterprise morning this year and for the students for their entertaining and well thought through concept pitches.

Additional thanks go to the volunteers from industry for giving motivational testimonials and guiding the students through the development of their concepts.