Enterprise across the Curriculum at Swanlea School

 

A few words about Swanlea 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