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St Paul's Envision

Pupils earn praise from business leaders

Our students have earned positive praise from Birmingham’s business leaders in the Community-Apprentice Pitching Challenge.

We have two teams entering the Community-Apprentice competition this year which is running in 15 schools across the city.  Loosely based on the TV show The Apprentice, young people, working in teams, compete to develop, and crucially demonstrate, their skills whilst managing their own projects.  But in this case, they compete not to see who can make the most money, but who can make the biggest positive impact on their community.

Turning ideas into action

Over the past few weeks the teams have been coming up with ideas and developing them into a practical plan.  They have set a clear goal, identified relevant activities, allocated responsibilities, set deadlines, identified resources and produced a budget.

Team ‘BFF’ are planning to tackle the lack of support that exists for foster children by raising money for a local foster home by holding fundraising events such as a coffee morning and a talent show. Team ‘Slim Pancakes’ are planning to change attitudes towards obesity and promote healthy eating in young people by running a social media campaign, holding assemblies and doing workshops. 

Pitch Perfect

Our teams pitched their ideas to local business leaders to get funding to help implement their plans as well as feedback to help them improve their impact.

The event was held in the impressive surroundings of the University of Birmingham, a leading Redbrick University.  7 teams from schools from across the city pitched in front of each other as well as the panel giving students the opportunity to watch each other to help them learn what makes a successful pitch.

One of the panellists said: “It is clear how passionate the students from St Paul’s school for girls are about their projects and they have provided very detailed budgets for how they intend to support their activities. We hope that what they deliver has a lasting impact on their community.”

Student, Keley , said: “I thought the business mentoring session helped us prepare for the Pitching Challenge a lot as our business mentors gave us great tips on how to give a good pitch and the session helped build our confidence before presenting in front of the other schools.”

St Paul's School for Girls