Sponsors
Week 1
Team name: BlennAbility
Tell us what you have been doing this week
We worked with Mrs H-L finding out more about Bright Stars on the website. We talked in groups about what sort of business we wanted to be and how we could help to make a difference in our community. We thought about what we already do in our community like Harvest Hampers, Singing at coffee mornings and community events.
We used the sustainability goals to help us pick areas that we could include in our project. We chose Good Health & Well-Being, Life on land, Quality Education and No Poverty/hunger. We talked about how we could make someone's life brighter through small acts of kindness.
What did you learn this week?
How small ideas can make a big difference. We know that our community loves to be involved with the school so thought of lots of activities where we could spend time together. Sometimes people find it hard to talk to others so we thought doing craft or having a cuppa would help.
What did you find difficult this week?
Listening to everyone's ideas when we all have lots of our own to share
Understanding some of the sustainability goals
Working on ideas for our making a difference project
Thinking about how to involve our community
Week 2 - half term
Week 3
Tell us what you have been doing this week
Over half term Anna and her colleagues looked at our logo designs and chose their top three. They gave us feedback on what they thought and Rebecca was so happy that her design was the winner. It was good to hear what other business people thought about what we were doing and trying to help us be the best!
Anna and Mrs Davies worked with us this week to think about and make really clear what our business was about. We created our written business plans and made a list of items we needed to buy to run the Chatter Cafe and Community Craft events too.
What did you learn this week?
How to listen to and share ideas with others
To celebrate the achievements of our friends - We were very proud of Rebecca for her winning logo design. We demonstrated resilience even if we didn't win ourselves.
How to create a business plan - this was hard but we stuck with it
What did you find difficult this week?
To manage our expectations of the project - we wanted to do so much but had to be very clear about what was possible in the time.
Making sure everyone understood our goals
Our Winning Community Focused Logo - Designed by Rebecca
BlennAbility Business Plan - Do you have the BlennAbility to make a difference in your community?
Expectations for Creative Team
Expectations for Marketing Team
Week 4
Tell us what you have been doing this week
We met with Anna for our weekly session and she helped us to think about key roles and responsibilities within our business. We came up with four categories and everyone in or class chose where they felt their skills would shine best.
Creative Team (PM, DH, LW, AR, SK, JB)
Finance Team (GG, HH, MB, MB)
Marketing Team (AS, AB, IK, JHM)
Management Team (LB, NL, JHa, KRM)
We have lots of ideas for our project and are trying to keep them manageable. We want to do lots of things but may not have time in the project to do everything!
What did you learn this week?
That we need to be really to be really responsible
It gave everyone the chance to show what they can do
How to check in with other teams to make sure everyone knows what to do
What did you find difficult this week?
Trying to listen and remember what we needed to do.
Understanding that we are not able to boss people around.
Wanting to do everything all at one
Week 5
Tell us what you have been doing this week
Anna helped us to think about the products that we might make to help raise some funds for Bright Stars. We talked a lot about looking after wildlife in our local area and one of her colleagues had thought about hedgehog houses or bird boxes. We thought about how our community could get involved to help us make these and then we could sell them or have a few of them around the houses in the village to monitor the wildlife that visits.
We all came up with ideas of crafts/experiences that we could do together with our community and then picked items to make/buy for our enterprise stall too.
What did you learn this week?
How to plan for a community event
How to make step by step instructions for each activity with a list of equipment/resources
We watched a YouTube video to help us understand how to make a hedgehog house and bird feeder
https://youtu.be/mNnbvPdVYRU
What did you find difficult this week?
Staying focused on what was possible! We needed to start small and grow from there.
We chose four community activities
Hedgehog Houses
Tea Cup Bird Feeders
Positivity Pebbles
Festive Baubles
Positivity Pebbles - Individual and Community Walking Trails
Letter to Families - Bright Stars Community Events
Paper Bag Stars - Star decorations for Bright Stars
Soy candle Making - Y12 helped us
Week 6
Tell us what you have been doing this week
Busy week of ordering resources, planning the making of the products and costings.
We really want to make a difference in our community and have been thinking of how the products we make can have a lasting impact. The bird feeders and hedgehog houses could go in gardens around our community so that we can get the village involved with things like the Big Garden Birdwatch in January and wildlife monitoring in our local area. The children want to collect data and use their maths, science and computing skills to present it.
What did you learn this week?
How simple, small things we do, can help to make a big difference to others.
Chatter Cafe events - social interaction/friendship
Heritage and Modern Craft Workshops - Sharing skills, collaborating and communicating well
Community Kindness Cup - using the model of something we do in school for other
What did you find difficult this week?
Containing our excitement to get started and run the events
Lots of planning which some people found tricky
We had loads of fun and good chatter about our legacy project.
Week 7
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week, we have been making lots of different items to sell on our BlennAbility Stall before and after school. We will have our stall out at our Community Cafe and singalong session (6th) and at our Community Craft sessions too (7th).
We have used our theme of repurposing and recycling and have made natural soy candles in recycled jars and tins, festive baubles using old nail polish and biodegradable glitter, and paper bag stars.
We have wrapped and branded our products with the BlennAbility logo stickers and we have worked on a pricing spreadsheet with Mrs H-L to sell our items.
What did you learn this week?
How to use an Excel spreadsheet to record how much we have spent, how much per item and profit we could make.
How much things cost
What profit is
How exciting making a profit will be!
How to strike a balance between profit and sales
How to listen to each other
What to do if we need help
What did you find difficult this week?
Thinking about how much we should sell our items for! Some people wanted to sell things very cheaply and others wanted to charge a lot. Our teachers helped us to find a balance as it was hard!
Festive Baubles handmade by us - Y56
BlennAbility Branding on our products - very proud!
BlennAbility Sales Team ready for customers
BlennAbility Community Craft Makes
Week 8
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week has been super busy for our BlennAbility Team. We have held two launch events to encourage members of our wider school community to get involved with the school through music, craft and chatter! We held a Chatter Cafe on Wednesday afternoon and sang some of our Young Voices songs for our guests. Then we spent time chatting to people about school, Bright Stars and what we were trying to achieve. On Thursday, we had two Community Craft sessions where people could come and make baubles, bird feeders, candles and positivity pebbles and buy them to take home. We also made some to sell too
What did you learn this week?
How to work well together as a team in front of others
We took on roles as Greeters, Servers and Community Friends - each of us playing a part in the bigger picture.
We loved speaking to people and seeing the smiles on their faces hearing about school and sharing experiences together.
What did you find difficult this week?
That more people weren't able to come along to the events.
We remained resilient and enjoyed doing the crafts ourselves so plan to offer a monthly calendar of events after the project too.
Week 9
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have been looking at our finances as we reached the end of the project. We used the spreadsheet to check stock left over and to see what made the most profit. We counted the cash and repaid Mrs Studholme for the cost of stock purchased before checking to see if we had made a profit overall. We really want to make enough money to buy a Community Kindness Cup as well as some to give to our chosen charity too. It has been hard work but we have enjoyed working with Anna and were glad she got to see our community events in action too.
What did you learn this week?
Lots! How to be confident speaking with and getting to know others How to organise and run large events in our community How much hard work it is and how tiring! How much we loved making other people feel happy, cared for and involved!
What did you find difficult this week?
Trying to decide whether we had made a profit and how to sell the left over stock at a discount. We believed in our products so didn't want to sell them cheaply! We understood every pound would help!
For pupils to answer:
In one sentence please tell us what bright stars has meant to you?
Making a difference to other people, sharing things we know and do and looking outside of our school to help people in our community.
For teachers to answer:
Can you tell us the impact this programme has had on your school?
The children have been amazing with their ideas, planning and organisation of the Community events and we hope that the legacy of this Bright Stars project is the continuation of monthly Chatter Cafes, Community Crafts and Heritage Skills as well as the introduction of a Community Kindness Cup where nominations will be collected monthly and the Y34 children will decide on the monthly winner. The winner each month will join our school celebration assembly on a Friday and receive the trophy for the month.
I love that the children have gained so much confidence, care and empathy for senior members of our community and have come up with lots of creative ways to engage with the wider community. Although we didn't see as many people as perhaps we would have liked, the children have shown positivity and resilience in their determination to embed the community sessions in the school and village calendars.
The children have demonstrated great resilience in their pursuit of strengthening our community engagement, knowing that there is social and rural isolation and understanding the need for contact with people in our villages that have no direct connection to the school but who are connected to us as part of the wider school family.
Using the idea of the Kindness Cup that we have in school to collect, identify and acknowledge the skills, experiences and kindness in our wider community is a wonderful legacy that will continue to make a positive difference long after the project had ended. The children were focused on making a profit but in reality, all they wanted was enough to run future events and to buy a Kindness Cup! I really loved that the project was so much more than the money!
We have loved being part of Bright Stars and the support from Anna and her team at Indelible Data has been fantastic. She has shown the children care, genuine interest and supported them with all aspects of the project from initial ideas to the community events. We have loved her weekly sessions and are incredibly grateful for her time, expertise and insight.
Thank you x
FROM ANNA WILSON - INDELIBLE DATA
I found the children hugely engaged and interested not only in the process but in the idea of running a business and what that involves. I strongly feel that we may have planted the entrepreneurial seed during the project. The children and the school were a real pleasure to work with.
Please provide your business plan.
Please provide your marketing plan.
Please provide your finance report/template.
Charity name/money donated to.
Watchtree Nature Reserve £135.00
Final profit (minus the £50 seed funding).
£262.77
Children Performing Songs at our Community Chatter Cafe
Children demonstrating Bauble Making at Community Craft Session
BlennAbility Final Video
