Enterprise across the Curriculum at Swanlea
School
A few words about Swanlea School.
- 11-16 mixed comprehensive (64% boys)
- Opening a post 16 centre next year
1050 pupils
- Intake: 90% Bangladeshi; 94% ESOL
- 75% of our pupils are eligible for free school meals
- GCSE achievement 2004 - 43% 5 A to C
- Enterprise pathfinder school
How can you expect staff to teach 'Enterprise' if they don't
understand what it means? This was our starting point when
developing a plan for delivering enterprise at Swanlea School.
To begin with we needed to find out what staff thought enterprise
meant in a teaching context. Here are a few quotes from our
staff:
- 'Enterprise is all about business'
- 'another government initiative'
- 'not sure - is it starting your own business?'
In general, we found that there was a misconception about
enterprise. So, we had some work to do to develop a working
definition of enterprise for each faculty and overcome any
negative associations of 'Business and Enterprise' that staff
may have. This required an innovative approach and a new
INSET model. We started the 're-education' with a one day
INSET designed to help colleagues learn for themselves what
enterprise means and how it can be developed further in their
teaching. So, we sent our entire staff out to a range of
organisations to start a 'conversation' about enterprise.
Objectives of the INSET
We are in the process of refining the ways in which enterprise
learning is evaluated. We have also been working towards
an agreed working definition of "enterprise" and "enterprise
learning". This day was intended as a developing debate
to feed into both of these processes.
The Three Propositions
Using the three propositions below as stimulus, staff were
given time to prepare questions for the businesses they were
going to visit. At this point, they were working in cross-faculty
groups.
1. It's better to be enterprising. This is true of schools
and businesses, teachers and students and in society in general.
2. You can't teach people to be enterprising but they can
encouraged by good leadership and an enterprising environment.
3. People who work in schools are enterprising by profession
and have as much to teach business people about creating
enterprising environments as the other way round.
The Visits
The visit hosts included:
- Bank of America (Commodity Trading) · Department
for Education and Skills
- Clifford Chance
- Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project
- Pentonville Prison
- Jagonari Women's Centre
- Bankside Restaurant EC2 (Small Business of the Year 2004-05)
- Welbeck Consulting Group
- KPMG
- The Hoxton Apprentice
- HALKEVI (Kurdish Refugee Centre)
- MaydayExec Agnecy
Being enterprising in a teaching context
On their return, staff fed back in lively group discussion
over lunch and compiled a list of definitions and comments
on a display screen. They then went back into faculty groups
to discuss what being enterprising might mean to them in
the context of their own faculty.
It's not easy to be enterprising
The day ended with a question and answer session with Ian
Hughes (Team Leader, Enterprise and Schools Business Links,
DfES). There was a debate around the definition and worth
of the term enterprise.
Action points and follow up
Faculties agreed an action plan for developing enterprise
and there will be follow up meetings (led by me!) to ensure
that our enterprise provision becomes embedded across the
curriculum. Some example action points are below:
- Science - To be more creative in the lessons. To manage
risk better, encourage independent learning and self evaluation.
- Maths - Weekly faculty meeting, at the beginning to have five minutes of
what they witnessed as being enterprising this week.
Teacher Feedback
Most striking impression about the visits?
- The two women we met [at Hoxton Apprentice], ordinary
women yet so confident, they have done so much in such
a small amount of time.
- An excellent day ''thank you'', we visited Kelvin at
Bankside, inspirational.
- Greg from Bank of America was a philosopher and not a
cut throat business man. That the innovation in banking
has to be regulated.
- I enjoyed DfES it wasn't what I expected: it wasn't
all about money
... about the style of the INSET
- Intriguing discussions and effect of the visit. Very
educational.
- Sparked a debate which should have started a long time
ago.
- Excellent programme.
- Different experience, thought provoking.
- Going out of the school and meeting people with real
enterprise experience. Getting us 'out of the box'.
- Going out to meet people in the workplace and having
very interesting and valuable discussions. It got everyone
talking and discussing/ exchanging ideas.
- The opportunity to see another working environment and
learn from other professionals.
- How important it is for the worlds of school and enterprise
to meet.
- It was great to think about and discuss issues that were
most certainly more important than exams. Refreshing, inspiring.
... about the significance of "being
enterprising"
- How elusive the idea of 'enterprise' was at the beginning
of the day and then how we were able to see it in terms
of our own development by the end of the session, the visits
were very effective.
- The nature of the open ended questions, what is enterprising?
The time to EXPERIENCE truly beneficial for teachers.
Looking ahead from today, what insights will you take to
your next teaching and faculty meetings?
- An opportunity to reflect, risk taking on curriculum
and other opportunities we currently offer.
- Given the time restraints, we are incredibly innovative/
motivated team so we need to create an environment where
we are allowed to experiment.
- As a teacher I will try to firstly teach in a more enterprising
way and secondly try to infect my students to take risks,
celebrate and value differences and encourage independent
learning.
- That we all have common goals and that my faculty are
a passionate creative group, truly enterprising.
- Thinking of how to give children an 'enterprising education'!!!
- The idea of learning by doing, promoting my subject area
in a practical way so that students can use the knowledge
to produce and think outside the box.
- Long term vision/ goals. Trying to think creatively
about our constraints.
- Refocus on thinking skill and interpersonal skills in
my teaching and interaction with students.
- How we can develop teaching so that we motivate students
to be independent and creative.
- The need to empower our students in various ways including
in social and emotional intelligence.
- Try to take risks in teaching, lead by example. Enterprising
award to students. Encourage students to make things happen.
- To try to take more risks in my teaching to try to encourage
students to take more risks. How important confidence is!!
- Enterprise is a broad word, all students are entrepreneurs,
need to encourage them to become more confident and independent.
- To motivate the student about enterprise.
- Be more positive and try to bring some fun back into
learning.
ENTERPRISE ROOMS
Having overcome some significant barriers during the day,
the whole staff are now in a much better position to bring
enterprise to life in the classroom. To support their efforts
we have now established one 'enterprise' room in each faculty.
In practice, this means that one room in each faculty has
been redeveloped with enhanced resources which facilitate
an improved enterprise provision. For example, the Science
and Enterprise Room will have a sign on door, interactive
whiteboard, projector, laptop, notice board, redecoration
- DISPLAY THEME - 'DISCOVERY'.
Strands:
- Economic and Business understanding
- Financial literacy
- Enterprise capability
Themes:
- Discovery
- Innovation
- Media
- Technology
- Creativity
- Communication
- Problem solving
- Risk awareness
- International markets
- People
- Society
These rooms provide physical evidence for the students that
enterprise is cross-curricular. The displays help explain
the nature of enterprise in a particular setting.
We will be developing these rooms further during next year
and we hope to build on the success of our INSET. What we
now know is that we already have an incredibly enterprising
staff who understand how to embed enterprise into their subject.
We do have Enterprise Rooms in each faculty across the school.
To find out more come and see the rooms for yourself!
Simon Firth
Swanlea School
March 2005
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