Sponsors
Week 1
Team name: AINS Christmas Crew
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we met our friends from West Coast Sixth Form for the first time.
We learned all about what the bright stars project entails and started coming up with ideas for our business.
We decided we would like to do something to tie in with Christmas as we thought we could sell our product at our school Christmas fayre.
As we are a forest school we talked about using natural materials to make our product.
We had so many ideas !
What did you learn this week?
We learned all about the project and what a business is.
What did you find difficult this week?
We came up with so many ideas that it was difficult to choose one !
Week 2 - half term
Week 3
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we focused on coming up with a business name and designing a logo for our business.
As a group we agreed on the business name AINS Christmas Crew as our product is going to be based around Christmas.
Our friends from Workington Sixth form brought some ideas of business logos for us to look at and we discussed what made a good logo.
We all designed a logo and then had a vote to decide which one we would use.
What did you learn this week?
Why business logos and names are important.
What makes a good business name and logo.
What did you find difficult this week?
Deciding on a name and logo as they were all so good !
Ensuring our business name was short and catchy.
Week 4
Tell us what you have been doing this week
We have now decided that for our business we would like to design, make and sell Christmas decorations.
We feel that they will help spread Christmas cheer as people can give them to friends or family as a gift.
We are also going to take some in to our local care home for the residents.
As we are a forest school we are going to use natural materials, e.g. sticks and pinecones to create our decorations.
Today we had a go at designing the decorations. After we came up with a design we though about what materials we would need to make them.
What did you learn this week?
We thought about the materials we would need to make our decorations - could we find them in the forest or would we need to buy them ?
If so how much would they cost ?
We discussed how much we would need to sell our decorations for in order to make a profit.
What did you find difficult this week?
Our designs were brilliant but some of them would take a lot of time to make and involved a lot of different materials - ensuring they are simple and not too time consuming
Week 5
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we went out into our forest to collect materials we will need to make our decorations.
We showed great resilience and spirit as it was a very wet afternoon !
We then worked together to do an order of extra materials we will need, e.g. string and ribbon.
We had a go at making some prototype decorations.
What did you learn this week?
We learned about sticking to a budget when ordering resources and materials
What did you find difficult this week?
Our decorations didn't look quite right the first time we made them so we tried different sizes and a different method for our Christmas tree decoration.
Week 6
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we started making our decorations.
We split into two groups - One group worked on the pinecone decorations with our friends from Workington Sixth Form and the other group worked on the Christmas tree decorations with Mrs Ennis.
What did you learn this week?
We learnt that we needed to preserve when things were tricky. One pupil commented when cutting out the Christmas Tree template - 'this is hard can we only make one ?'
We talked about how this would mean only 1 person could buy a decoration from us and we would only make £1.
What did you find difficult this week?
We found it difficult to cut out the Christmas tree shapes as the cardboard was tough to cut - we showed great resilience and didn't give up !
Week 7
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have continued to make the decorations and wrapping paper. We have also made posters to advertise our stall at the Christmas fayre.
This week our friends from the academy brought more of their friends so that we had lots of extra pairs of hands.
We have advertised our stall on Tapestry and Facebook and made some short videos telling people about our products.
We are very excited for our Christmas fayre which is on Friday !
Lots of our teachers have said that they would like to buy our products too so we are going to create some order forms for them.
What did you learn this week?
This week we learnt about what makes a good advert - we thought about what information we want people to know about our products and the best ways to share this with them.
What did you find difficult this week?
The decorations are quite time consuming to make so we have not been able to make as many as we hoped.
Week 8
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we met up with our friends from the Academy for the last time.
As a group we decided on what charity we would like to donate our money to - We chose Hospice at Home.
We also sold the remaining decorations from the stall to staff in school.
What did you learn this week?
We learned about charities and how important it is to give to others - this has tied in with our learning in RE where we are thinking about giving.
What did you find difficult this week?
Choosing a charity as we talked about so many great ones !
Week 9
Tell us what you have been doing this week
We worked on our finance plan - to work out how much we had spent, what our profit was, how much we were going to donate etc. We also visited our local care home and gave them some of our decorations.
What did you learn this week?
We learned about what a 'profit' is.
What did you find difficult this week?
It was tricky as we had to do some big sums !
For pupils to answer:
In one sentence please tell us what bright stars has meant to you?
We worked as a team and made new friends, we loved meeting the girls from 6th form and seeing them every week. We all loved helping out on the stall at the Christmas Fayre.
For teachers to answer:
Can you tell us the impact this programme has had on your school?
It has been lovely to work with the students from the Academy on this project. The children have loved Bright Stars and looked forward to it each week. They have learned new skills and had fun.
Please provide your business plan.
Please provide your marketing plan.
Please provide your finance report/template.
Charity name/money donated to.
Hospice at Home
Final profit (minus the £50 seed funding).
£120
