Enternships

Are You Ready? Bringing Enterprise In Education by trrpaipai

Enternships is a big fan of initiatives that bring enterprise and business innovation forward. We love those that involve young people even more and this is precisely what ‘Are You Ready?’ is all about: a comprehensive programme and campaign to create an urgently needed culture of enterprise in education.

Their approach is to harness ‘enterprise’ as a vehicle for transformation – raising aspirations, developing skills and bringing the community together through schools and colleges to create a more prosperous future. The ‘Are you ready?’ experience and belief is that young people need to be enterprising, develop an entrepreneurial mindset and have the confidence and ambition to take on the challenges and opportunities of life in the 21^st century.

How it all started

It’s been six years since they launched their first enterprise programme and the ‘Ready’ model and ‘Inspire’ enterprise training are now internationally acclaimed. The original project, Rotherham Ready, won the prestigious Enterprising Britain competition for ‘creating a culture of enterprise’ and Rotherham was named the ‘Most Enterprising PlaceinBritain’ 2010 as a result.

The national programme ‘Are You Ready?’ won the StartUp Britain ‘Best Enterprise Support Award’ at the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2011. This project received very good feedback from OFSTED too – after HMI spent a week in 2008 looking at how it inspired schools and colleges to give enterprise education a high priority.

This team believes that education has a key role to play in helping young people prepare for the challenges and opportunities of life in the 21^st century and that supporting them to be ‘enterprising’ is a key part of their development. Can’t argue with that!

How they do it

The ‘Ready’ target has a bold and unique take: they target young people – from four-years-old right up to young adults of 19 – to ensure a progressive development of enterprise skills, qualities and knowledge. Attitudes and mindsets are formed at an early age, so it is critical that we start developing enterprising skills, qualities and knowledge in the primary years and ensure it progresses through secondary education and beyond.

The idea is to train teachers to develop enterprise through the curriculum and as part of school culture so that enterprise is not seen as a bolt on – it is seen as an approach to teaching and learning and a way of giving relevance and meaning to the curriculum and school life. The ‘Inspire Pioneers’ tour aims to take this acclaimed training programme around the UK, working with teaching practitioners from Early Years to Higher Education.

The campaign

In November 2011 a campaign was launched and HM e-petition to highlight some of the major challenges faced by young people and our society. The campaign and e-petition call on the government to do three things:

1. Make enterprise and entrepreneurship education a key part of all young people’s learning entitlement through the National Curriculum.
2. Make enterprise and entrepreneurship education part of teacher training and development.
3. Make enterprise and entrepreneurship education part of the Ofsted inspection framework.

To find out more, please visit www.areyouready.org.uk/campaign where you can download the briefing paper and also sign the e-petition!

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