Students Discover the Power of Social Enterprises 

A huge thank you to alumni for supporting Year 12 students as they learned about Social Enterprises and the Circular Economy over two fantastic days of workshops and visits, culminating in a Dragon’s Den style challenge to design and pitch an idea for an impactful service, product or intervention appropriate to their local community. 

As part of their Alleyn's Activities Week, Year 12s had the opportunity to hear from Alleyn’s staff and alumni who are experts in their field to learn more about start-ups in tech and sustainability as well as how to design for your market and explore effective storytelling and branding. 

As part of the experience, the students visited Brixton to meet Mark Ovenden (Cribb's 1992) who established The Remakery - a collaborative workspace, where individuals come together to solve problems around waste and creativity. Mark gave the students a tour and introduced them to some local leaders of Social Enterprises concerned with food and fashion to begin their exploration of what we mean when we speak about Social Enterprise and the Circular Economy. 

The Year 12s also had the chance to meet Zoe Miller (Roper's 2015) who founded Bloody Brilliant Pads, a social enterprise with a mission to play a part in revolutionising periods through completely plastic-free reusable pads. 

Alleyn’s Head of Computer Science, Oz O’Neill, shared insight into how tech companies differ from others and what to keep in mind when considering a start-up of this kind. Anna McKay of Alleyn’s new AiQ Department, ran an interactive session on how to think in terms of your market and see things from the perspective of others. And Head of Marketing and Communications, Isabella Sharp, led the students through an excellent exploration of how to tell the story of your company and why it matters to get this right. In between all of these varied learning moments, students worked in teams through challenges set to understand their local communities, build habits in systems thinking and practicing pitching their ideas.

The two days culminated in the Year 12s designing an idea for an impactful service, product or intervention appropriate to their local community. The teams had to come up with a logo and a website landing page and pitch their idea to a panel of expert judges including Charlotte Brown (Cribb's 2010) and Sanjay Sood-Smith (Tyson's 2005).  

Charlotte is a freelance marketing strategist with years of brand, marketing and communications experience. She recently founded her own business, Lacuna, a freelance marketing studio supporting start-ups and scale-ups. Sanjay is Manager at Bain & Company, a leading global management consulting firm, where he helps clients solve some of their toughest business challenges. In 2014 Sanjay appeared on BBC’s The Apprentice so he is no stranger to being scrutinized by judges and the pair certainly put our students through their paces with challenging questions following their pitches. 

Business ideas included ‘Rent-a-Tent' to reduce the number of tents being left at festivals and events and ending up in landfill, a business to help young people access work experience and ‘Noodles for Noodles’ - a noodle truck which donates a percentage of its profits to help children in South London learn to swim. The winning idea was 'Hire Hopes' - a platform to bring opportunities for work and training to refugees driven by a personal story. Well done to all!

Congratulations to all Year 12s for their exciting ideas and energetic pitches. And thank you to our alumni for sharing your expertise and time with our students and showing them how they can apply their studies for purpose.