Sponsors
Week 1
Team name: Cocoa House - A Bite of Joy - One Bar Could Save a Life
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have been introduced to our Bright Stars Mentor Lindsay from Age UK West Cumbria, she explained what a business is and how we can start our own. We discussed product ideas for our business, brainstorming which idea would work best for our community and school. We ended the session by looking at the 5P's of business and finalising our business plan.
What did you learn this week?
We learned:
1. What a business is
2. How a businesses/social enterprises runs
3. To start a business small in order to grow larger
4. The 5P's of business
5. Short Snappy slogans
6. Who Lindsay is and her important job at Age UK West Cumbria
7. What a charity is
What did you find difficult this week?
As a class we found finalising our product ideas difficult because we needed to think smaller about our business plan initially. We also found deciding on a snappy logo and business name tricky.
The 5P's Business Model
Meeting Lindsay our Mentor
Week 2 - half term
Week 3
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have been exploring different job roles in a social enterprise and how everyone helps the business to run efficiently and successfully. We talked about the importance of working together as a team, even though we all may have different roles we should remain focused upon what we are trying to do together. As a class we started by sharing positive comments about each other which helped boost people's confidence and explore job roles they may not have considered.
To finish, we explored our business plan again and finalised which Sustainable Development Goals we wanted to focus on.
What did you learn this week?
We learned about the different job roles in a business and how they all work together towards a common goal, we then discussed which skills people would need in order to run a profitable successful business. We have focused upon self reflection this week and being proud of our strengths and others.
What did you find difficult this week?
We found it difficult to make sure that everyone was proud of their strengths and promoting themselves whilst supporting others goals. Alongside this, we found it hard to apply for just one position.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Cocoa House Logo's
Our Final Voted Logo
Week 4
Tell us what you have been doing this week
Today we discussed how we were going to bring our coffee morning to life. We reflected on the prior week, thought about our individual roles and responsibilities and how we were going to work as a team to make our dream a reality. We focused on deadlines this week, we created a list so everyone is aware of what needs to be done and when it needs to be completed by. Alongside this, we utilised our British Value skills to vote democratically on a logo for our business Cocoa House - to do this we used the following criteria: is it memorable, does it explain who we are and is it versatile.
What did you learn this week?
We learned a lot about planning ahead and organisation as we had to look in detail at our Cocoa House coffee morning and how we could make it a special event for all the community to enjoy together. We focused on turn taking whilst communicating and listening to others ideas sympathetically.
What did you find difficult this week?
This week we found difficult to plan our coffee morning into an already busy diary with enough notice so our community members could attend and timetabling how different year groups could join us.
Week 5
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have been focusing on the creative marketing aspect of our business and how we are going to bring our coffee morning to our local community. We focused primarily upon working collaboratively and brainstorming where we could advertise our event, to do this we considered the main hubs in our village and their accessibility for our older residents. Together we created an extensive list of businesses we would stop by during the week to politely ask if we could place our posters in the windows whilst spreading the word.
What did you learn this week?
We have learned about the importance of community ties and how small gestures can influence changes to not only ourselves but the people around us too - this occurred through talking to people in our village shops and seeing their appreciation that we stopped to have a chat and share our news.
What did you find difficult this week?
We found it difficult to decide which information we needed to prioritise on our marketing posters and where we should advertise them within our local community looking at raising their aspirations.
Poster Marketing Time
Secret Special Project Underway
Lending a helping hand
Sweet treats
Week 6
Tell us what you have been doing this week
We have been exceptionally busy this week as a class getting prepared for our coffee morning on Tuesday 28th November. We have focused on working as a team and communicating clearly with our friends to create the products for our hampers and the different stalls at our special community event. We discussed how we could ensure everyone felt comfortable with their activity and how as a class we could help each other complete the different jobs - we reminded each other of our special skills from our job application forms and used our voices to communicate this so people knew who to ask for help.
What did you learn this week?
We learned how to communicate with each other effectively as a team and prioritise different activities and jobs over others. To do this we asked short simple questions to understand which activity was more time consuming and needed more people helping, from this we could rearrange ourselves.
What did you find difficult this week?
We found it difficult making sure everyone was working on their correct area and communicating with each other when their objective was complete, but we did get the hang of it and helped when needed.
Week 7
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week has been incredibly busy and exciting, we have held our coffee morning on Tuesday for everyone in our local community and it was a huge success. It was like a Christmas Fair. We were blown away by the amount of money we have raised to support Age UK West Cumbria and the turnout from our local villagers and beyond. We are very proud of all the hard work we have put into our event to make it a success, we couldn't have done it without pulling together as a team with Lindsay and Nicola our business mentors and the support from our school. We even received a video message from our MP!
What did you learn this week?
This week we have learned how to interact with customers we don't know and how to hold a conversation with them. We have also learned how to maintain our businesses finances and raise more funds.
What did you find difficult this week?
We found counting the correct amount of change difficult when we were given larger notes especially when people were buying multiple items (also not snacking on our items). It tested our Maths skills.
Cocoa House Coffee Morning
Busy, busy, busy selling our products...
Original Packaging
New Limited Edition Packaging
Week 8
Tell us what you have been doing this week
This week we have been extremely busy fulfilling our extra hamper orders from our coffee morning, we quickly sold out so we had to hand out order forms to our customers! We continued making and assembling our products over the course of the week but we hit a stumbling block when it came to the presentation of our hampers - the boxes we had used dramatically increased in price so we had to review our financial plan. Unfortunately, our finance team decided the price of the boxes were too high, so our marketing team had to come up with a different creative solution.
What did you learn this week?
We learned that making up peoples orders can be quite time consuming and that it isn't always a bad thing to change the look of the products if it is going to save the businesses budget as long as we communicate this to our customers. Overall we learned how to compromise in our business roles.
What did you find difficult this week?
This week we found it difficult to compromise on our design and to work out the cost of one unit whilst maintaining the price of the products we had already sold whilst keeping the quality high.
Week 9
Tell us what you have been doing this week
On our final week we have been working hard to complete our final orders and enjoyed handing them our to our happy customers. This week we have celebrated our successes and the learning journey we have taken with Cocoa House, we cannot believe our business has came this far and had so much support from our local community. We have been busy talking with our fundraising committee at school about how we can continue to bring everyone together in future and make school a hub for everyone in our village. As a class we are hoping to continue our efforts in reducing loneliness alongside our school.
What did you learn this week?
We learned how to speak to others respectfully through our vocabulary choices and how the pace/tone of our voices can create a good impression to our customers and friends. Overall we have learned how we can work together and value everyone's contributions, no matter how big or small they are.
What did you find difficult this week?
It was difficult at first because we had several orders to complete to a high standard to maintain our quantity and quality control, but we came up with a methodical system to approach make it work!
For pupils to answer:
In one sentence please tell us what bright stars has meant to you?
To us Bright Stars means Cocoa House, our business that has helped the community and made everyone happy by bringing people together. Bright Stars means good times with our friends!
For teachers to answer:
Can you tell us the impact this programme has had on your school?
Bright Stars has had a brilliant impact on our school, it has allowed the children in my class to become passionate about their business and their goal of bringing the community together. It has given them something to work towards and provided a common interest amongst all peers which has created stronger friendships and bonds between our class. They have learned how to work together as a team and most importantly how to communicate sympathetically with everyone. Bright Stars has given everyone the ambition and drive to reach further then they have previously because they have had everyone right behind them supporting them every step of the way. The program has been a great way to build key communication lines in our class, school and wider community which we have all benefitted from!
Please provide your business plan.
Please provide your marketing plan.
Please provide your finance report/template.
Charity name/money donated to.
Age UK West Cumbria will receive 50% of our profits
Final profit (minus the £50 seed funding).
£1113.49
Team Cocoa House
Lights, Camera, Action… it’s video time
Cocoa House Video 5N SJS
