Our Rise Parkers enjoyed lots of valuable learning throughout Enterprise Week.

The aims of the week were to expand our understanding of economic wellbeing and to develop enterprise skills, such as; problem solving, financial awareness, critical thinking, teamwork and leadership, analytical skills and strategic thinking. During PSHE pupil voice, our pupils mentioned that they want to learn “more real-world situations, like paying bills”.

The theme week was a huge success, with each year group taking part in progressive and practical activities.

Nursery
Nursery children thoroughly enjoyed exploring money and building up an awareness of coins. By the end of the week, the children had a greater understanding of the concept of money and how money is needed to buy things-as not many things are free! In maths, we enjoyed singing the nursery rhyme ‘5 current buns in a bakers’ shop’, to help understand the concept of buying something with money. To help develop this idea further we decided to make Chocolate Easter Egg nests to sell. We enjoyed the whole process of reading the recipe, melting the chocolate, mixing it all together and decorating it with Easter eggs. We even decided to make boxes for our Easter egg nests to be packed in to make them look extra special! To create extra buzz for our Easter cakes we painted signs to advertise them to our customers – it was a huge success and the children loved taking it in turns being ‘The Shopkeeper’ counting the money and giving change if needed!

Reception
Reception children thoroughly enjoyed exploring money, building up an awareness of coins and their value. Children could identify coins and explored counting in 2’s and 5’s. Throughout the week, children learnt about the value of some of the coins and how we can add coins together to make amounts. They explored the concept of ‘making a profit’. We decided to make jam, and as part of this, children taste tested some jams from a local supermarket – we looked closely at the labels, and enjoyed the whole process of making jam; measuring and mixing ingredients, creating labels and marketing our product by making posters for the classroom windows. In addition, children enjoyed discussing how money is earnt and spent. They learnt that it is important to spend money on things that we need, before thinking about buying things that we want. Children showed this learning using picture prompts and sorting hoops. We also talked about how not everyone has the same amount of money, everyone is different.

Year 1
In year one, we started by decorating our own money jars so we had somewhere to store our coins for the week.  On Monday we were each given 50p and we discussed how 50p could be made using different coins.  Each day our teachers tried to tempt us to spend our money but we knew that there was going to be a big treat that we could buy at the end of the week.  Some of us couldn’t bare the temptation and we bought ice poles, sparkly stickers and chocolate fingers!  Some of us saved our money and we were able to spend it on the big Friday treat – cake decorating!  We talked about the importance of saving money and the difference between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’.

We also talked about how money is earnt and the things which we might spend it out.  We thought about what jobs we might like to have when we are older and the sort of skills or qualities we might need to be successful in these jobs.  We thought about where money comes from and how we might earn it.

Finally, with Mrs Desnica’s help we made some flapjack.  We looked at the different ingredients and how much they cost and then we thought about how much we would need to sell the flapjack for to make a profit.  Even though not all of the flapjack was quite as we had planned we successfully sold it all (some flapjack and some muesli!) for 50p each and made a great profit!

Year 2
Year 2 learnt all about where money comes from and how you can earn or save money. Discussions took place around what money might be needed for and how it might be saved. The children then generated ideas for how they could fundraise money  – we decided to sell frozen fruit yoghurts! Children learnt how to budget for ingredient, thinking carefully about costing, discussed how to sell the product to make a profit and how to advertise what they were selling. The children learnt about selling products and earning money to save for something that contributes to whole school resources. The sequence of lessons enabled the children to see the practical way that money has to be considered and what budgeting means when spending to make something. They also learnt all about how to make more money than you have spent which can be saved for something in the future.

Year 3
Mrs Kelly asked year 3 to investigate how well the class budgets were working across the school.

First of all we took photographs of the budget displays in each classroom and then we created a questionnaire and sent it out to each class. We interviewed Miss Richmond to find out how much items on the list cost now and created a new price list. We realised that in most classes children are concerned about how quickly they are spending their budget on replacing equipment.  This is a good sign because it means we are aware of the need to become more responsible.

Not all classes felt that they had a consistent approach to the budget so we are going to relaunch the scheme with our updated price list and some new ideas to make sure we are all working effectively. Teachers now have an updated price list, several items now cost more money to replace.

Each class needs to agree what they are planning to spend their budget on.

Finally to help everyone manage their budgets and be aware of how much money they are saving each class needs to display their remaining budget on the piggy bank and show the budget tracker so they can see where they are losing money/which items they are replacing most often.

Year 4
During Enterprise week the children discussed why we need money, how we can obtain money and what we spend it on.  The impact of this is that children have a clear idea about why we need money and the sorts of things that we spend it on.  We discussed that some people prioritise what they spend their money on e.g. buying food rather than a new computer game.

We then looked at the old hot chocolate stand and discussed what we needed to do if it were to be set up as a milkshake bar.  We discuss all the things we would need including equipment and ingredients.  We then used supermarket websites to price these things up.  We included not only ingredients like milk but also equipment like a new blender and reusable cups. We then worked out approximately how much it would cost to make a milkshake.  We explored the meaning of profit and why businesses need to make a profit and what it would be spent on.  The children also identified the need for and the pricing up of products for lactose intolerant children.  The impact of this that children have a clearer idea about how businesses are run and the need to make a profit.  Our final activity was to apply our persuasive skills to write adverts for the bar.  We also made posters.

Year 5
As part of our Enterprise Theme Week, Year 5 were tasked with the challenge of planning a healthy tuck shop to run on the Key Stage 2 playground. We started the week by researching possible snacks that we could sell (which we hoped our friends would find appealing!), thinking about Fair Trade products and our potential plastic wastage, before pricing each snack up and discussing what profit (and loss) was. The rest of our sessions involved a lot of decision making: we tried to think of all of the questions we would need answers to as a group before problem solving solutions to them. From working out potential job roles to considering how and where we would store the food each week, we gave our minds an excellent work out! We are now ready to start setting up our stall and we look forward to serving our friends in the summer term.

Year 6
Year 6 enjoyed planning their end of year trip with the money that they have earnt from the Investors in Pupils scheme. They had to research the prices of the cinema, bus and McDonalds and used their calculation skills to work out whether paying as a group or individuals would be best. In addition to this, they had to use their knowledge of time and timetables to calculate how long they would need for each activity and therefore at what time they could catch the bus to and from the city centre to allow enough time to do all of the activities that they wanted to. The children also had to cost up how much the trip would be for 60 people and how much money they had in their budget to spend. Eventually, they worked out that they would need to contribute another £5.50 each to ensure they had enough money to cover everything. Furthermore, the children learnt how to use excel to create a spreadsheet with formulas that would count up the amount of people who wanted each Happy Meal option. Then, they used these spreadsheets successfully to collect the data. This is going to be sent off to McDonalds to help them prepare the order and ensure that everyone gets the right food. They are really looking forward to the trip and it gave them an insight into what planning their own events will entail in the future.

Enterprise Curriculum Map Nursery

Enterprise Curriculum Map Reception

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 1

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 2

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 3

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 4

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 5

Enterprise Curriculum Map Year 6