Empowering Young Entrepreneurs

We won! 🏆 

🎉 We are absolutely thrilled to announce that we have won the 'Empowering Young Entrepreneurs' category in the Muddy Stilettos Best Schools Awards 2023!  

With over 400 entries from schools across the country, the competition was strong. Getting children ready for the commercial world means igniting their creativity and developing their business acumen, communication skills and confidence to lead and we had to prove how we achieve this.  

Muddy Stilettos stated, “The judges were incredibly impressed by all submissions but yours stood out for its originality and drive.” 

This award is a testament to the passion, talent and hard work of the Business, Economics and Enterprise Department, so congratulations go to them! 

RHS recognises that many young people entering the workplace may follow a ‘portfolio-career’ route where they have several jobs, some of which might be running their own enterprises. Preparing pupils for this is a central objective to the school and has been the objective of the Business, Economics and Enterprise department for the last 5 years. 

At RHS, creativity is not limited to the arts, as we encourage creative thinking in all aspects of school activities. Our BTEC Enterprise & Entrepreneurship course provides an excellent opportunity to combine creative thinking with practical skills. We believe that an understanding of how businesses are formed, operated and grown will benefit our pupils as they transition from education to employment or start their own businesses. 

To support our pupils, we have built a network of local and national entrepreneurs who regularly support our activities and assist with the delivery of Business, Economics and Enterprise & Entrepreneurship content. We believe that those with direct experience can really add value to the taught content and we have a programme of enterprise activities supported by local and national entrepreneurs throughout the year. This has not only led to phenomenal exam success for our pupils but also successful businesses run by our pupils and recent ex-pupils. 

The many ways we empower our young entrepreneurs include: 

• Design...Engineer...Construct!' (DEC) is one of our many co-curricular clubs at RHS. DEC awards allow pupils to think like architecture, construction and engineering professionals, with bite-sized project-based learning challenges. It also opens their eyes to possible future careers by encouraging introductions between professionals and schools. 

• Our pupils have created enterprises such as selling smoked salmon; a dog exercise field that has made excellent use of social media for promotion and has high demand; and food boxes based on Ukrainian cuisine that include ingredients and menu ideas for people wanting to try Ukrainian food. An offshoot of this business was to run small cooking classes for young children to raise money for Ukrainian refugees locally. 

• We hosted a three-day workshop with Fabio Zoffi, a philanthropic high-tech entrepreneur with huge ambitions to create 1 billion entrepreneurs by 2040. We are now featured in his count. 

• Business lunches are another way we empower our young entrepreneurs. This year pupils have been invited to business lunches with local businesses where they are taught the skill of successful networking and have access to these entrepreneurs' knowledge and experience. 

• We understand that entrepreneurship and leadership go hand in hand, therefore we introduced the first Suffolk Pupils' Leadership Conference in October 2022 and have integrated entrepreneurship and networking opportunities into the programme. 

Our BTEC in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (the equivalent of 2 A Levels) has had a massive take-up by pupils with impressive results, with some of the school’s top achievers choosing this as an option either to study alongside another A Level or BTEC option.

Last year, George Newland achieved an impressive Distinction star grade in his Enterprise and Entrepreneurship BTEC qualification alongside a Distinction star in BTEC Media Studies. At the same he secured a degree apprenticeship programme in Construction Management with the MACE Group, a global construction and consultancy company. He will gain his degree alongside at the University College of Estate Management in London. 

Karrie Clark was another of the school’s top performing students, gaining three BTEC starred Distinctions in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship and Sport.

Bertie Rose also secured two BTEC starred Distinctions in Enterprise & Entrepreneurship alongside an A grade in A Level Product Design. He has decided to study Business Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Oxford Brookes University.

Three of our pupils have recently received their DEC Connect Award: Design a Home for Everyone. They took on the challenge to design a house that is safe, comfortable, accessible and secure, that truly supports health and wellbeing; a house that is truly a home. They worked hard to fulfil the requirements of the design brief and with the support and advice of alumnus Andrew Shepherd, Managing Director of TopHat Communities, were encouraged to think about sustainable building design.