Westborough’s business bosses

BUSINESS SAVVY: Westborough High School’s students receieved their Enterprising School title from former Dragons’ Den star, Theo Paphitis

Kirklees high school continue to dominate enterprise competitions

When it comes to enterprising in schools, one Dewsbury establishment has cemented it place head and shoulders above the rest after scooping their latest award last month.

On 29th June, students and teachers from Westborough High School attended the Ryman’s National Enterprise final 2016 at Doncaster Racecourse, walking away with the biggest award of the night - Most Enterprising School 2016.

Students pitched their business and enterprise skills against young people from across the country, in front of some of business’s biggest names.

The 2016 challenge saw the school’s Year 10 students tasked with creating the ultimate school-based business, inspired by current ambassador, Theo Paphitis.

Popular youth television personalities, Dick and Dom, hosted the Grand Final, which saw finalists from each participating school pit their wits and best business schemes against one another, in the hope of being awarded the honour of national category winner.

Lukman Patel (Head of Business & Ethics) said: “To be crowned Ryman’s National Enterprise Most Enterprising school is a massive accolade and shows that we are leading nationally on Business and Enterprise education at Westborough.”

This is the school’s twelfth award in two years, meaning Westborough have now won every local, regional and national competition they have entered.

Last year, Year 10 students were confirmed joint winners of the national Tycoon in Schools contest at a ceremony attended competition founder, Peter Jones CBE.

The students, who set up the company Ethical Print, impressed with a community newsletter that focuses on charity work and environmental issues. To raise profits – which were then donated to charity – they sold advertising space to local businesses.

£1,000 Shoebox! Allerton Grange High School saves up for Syria

ACHIEVEMENT: Head Teacher Mr Roper joins representatives from Hamara Healthy Living Centre and Give a Gift Foundation, along with charity champ Fatma Ali (Pic Credit: Dave Goodfield

Students at a school in Roundhay have been leaving their ‘footprints’ on the lives of  local Syrian refugees this month as they managed to turn pennies into pounds to raise a ‘shoebox’ full of money.

Young people and staff at Allerton Grange High School, anchored by the money-raising talents of Maths HLTA, Fatma Ali, managed to accumulate over £1,000.

At the heart of the fundraising efforts was a cupcake and samosa sale, which ran throughout a school day earlier this month.

Sixth former at the school, Sabah Parveen, 17, said: “It went really well. The money raised will go towards helping those who have been displaced by war.”

Christina Nagle is a Year 7 form tutor at Allerton grange and leads the student council.

With a representative from each form making up the student body, Ms Nagle said the efforts of the students helped to make the day a success.

“Each year group meets on a different morning yet all of them were more than happy to help when they heard about the foodie fundraising,” she said.

“Pupils made posters; they spread the word, they collected forms and brought in dried food. It was the students that made it the success it was and the kids love fundraising.”

The idea for the project came about after Fatma says she was constantly seeing images of deprivation, war and poverty in Syria.

After considering ways of helping, it was decided that ‘charity starts at home’ and therefore the local Syrian refugees could be the beneficiaries of any fundraising efforts.

Fatma said: “After seeing the troubles in Syria, I thought to myself, let me cook some food. I prepped the menu a week before for all the teachers to order what they wished from me.

“It was a fantastic event. I couldn’t believe how much we raised. It was hard work, I didn’t sleep the whole of Sunday evening but I thought, for Syria we can do anything.

“The food was amazing, every department had a feast.”

Fatma eventually cooked up over 1,000 Egyptian style meals from her kitchen at home which staff described as ‘utterly delicious’.

Fatma continued: “It took the whole week to raise the money.

“We collected £400 on the Monday and from then, every day in the morning we collected money in the form time. Thank you so much to the staff and kids.”

The cheque was written for the Hamara Healthy Living Centre and Give a Gift Foundation which helps refugees in the local area.

The money will go towards helping Syrians who live in the local area, and also Iraqi, Lebanese, Eritrean and Sudanese families.

Rifhat Malik from Give a Gift said: “We want to thank Fatma and the school for an outstanding and overwhelming effort.

“We want to continue to do more work with Allerton Grange, thank you so much.”

Nabila Karim from Hamara added: “When Fatma came to us she was literally carrying a shoebox full of money.

“All the money was in pound coins and pennies. It goes to show that when people put their effort and commitment into something they can achieve so much.”