Young Richmond School entrepreneurs win national awards

From left, Peter Longstaff, Emma Scott, Amelia Brown and Cora Aked.

Four young entrepreneurs have won national awards in the 2020 Big Deal enterprise project.

The Year 11 students, from Richmond School and Sixth Form College, scooped the top accolades in four categories.

Sponsored by the University of York, the project takes students through a three-month intensive programme whereby they complete a series of business planning tasks, including ideas generation, budgeting, marketing and risk analysis.

This year, the programme was entirely online, however it didn’t deter the students who embraced this new way of working and delivered impressive results.

Amelia Brown won the award for outstanding engagement, Cora Aked for outstanding webinar engagement, Emma Scott for an outstanding business plan and Peter Longstaff for outstanding submissions in the weekly activities and business plan.

At the end of the programme, the students submitted their business plans, which were judged by business mentors and university leaders.

The students were awarded AirPods, tablets, stationery packs and University of York hoodies in recognition of their great ideas and contributions.

Peter’s business plan was for a product called Cool Dog which helps pets to keep cool in very hot weather.

Cora was also asked to develop a webinar on being an entrepreneur and the skills required and has developed superb presentation skills.

Liz Mannion, Richmond School careers and employability manager, said: “We had a massive take up to the Big Deal and I am very proud of all forty of our students for taking part.

“They demonstrated a huge commitment as this project spanned four months during school closure, it was a challenge that really motivated them.

“They also demonstrated fantastic independent learning skills which helps to develop employability skills for the future.

“It is a great honour for the school for four of our students to scoop top awards in a national competition.”