Monday
13th November - Friday 17th November
Inspire and motivate: Enterprise Week
is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate all the
fantastic work that goes on through the year with young
people. It also creates a chance to give a further
boost to raising the awareness of the importance of
enterprise. This years events included:
Enterprise Education Qualification event
Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Warwick,
Workforce Development RMBC and Rotherham Ready hosted a
twilight event to launch a GTC recognised and HE accredited
special module called ‘Professional Development in
the Workplace (Enterprise).’
Special Schools and Cad Cam
Hilltop and Kelford School carried out a full day collaborative
event using the Cad Cam facilities at Cent for students
to design and make a range of products for sale.
Girls Into Enterprise - Read
the full story below
Journalism Challenge - Read
the full story below
 Girls
Fly the Flag for Rotherham’s Enterprising Reputation
Wednesday 15th November, 88 girls
from schools across Rotherham gathered at the National
Metals Technology Centre in Rotherham for a fun-packed
day that tested their enterprise skills and inspired
them with real-life examples of leading women in enterprise
from across the region who contributed to the day.
Backed by Yorkshire Forward as part of a series of showcase
activities around the region for national Enterprise Week, ‘Girls
into Enterprise’ is another example of the enterprising
culture that gained Rotherham the award for Most Enterprising
Town in Yorkshire & Humber earlier this year.
It formed part of a week-long schedule
of inspirational activities across the borough as part
of the £1.4m Yorkshire Forward-funded Rotherham
Ready enterprise education programme, which aims to
engage and inspire young people from as young as four
through to 19 across all of Rotheham’s schools
and colleges. Nearly 3,000 local young people
have been involved so far, and the programme has already
attracted significant interest nationally, including
a visit by HM Treasury Officials researching best examples
of Enterprise Education in the UK.
Frances O’Riley, Enterprise Development Manager at
Yorkshire Forward, delivered the keynote speech at the
Girls into Enterprise event, which included an exciting
series of workshops run by successful Rotherham business
First2Train, Sheffield Hallam University’s Women
in Science Engineering and Technology Programme, trade
union Amicus, and Computer Club 4 Girls, the Sector Skills
Council programme to encourage girls into the IT and Telecoms
industry.
Alex McWhirter, Head of Enterprise
at Yorkshire Forward, said: “It is vital that
young women regard setting up a business as a viable
career option. The ‘Girls into Enterprise’ day
will feature workshops and inspirational speakers which
are a great way to show young people that enterprise
is fun, relevant, and full of exciting opportunities.
Mike Garnock-Jones, Rotherham Ready
Project Manager, commented: “To build the skills
we need in the labour force of the future we must begin
in schools. By developing enterprising skills
and opening horizons at a significant stage in their
education, we can help to raise aspirations of girls
and attract them into sectors like Science, Engineering
and Technology. It’s about building confidence
and above all showing them that it can be fun! That’s
the aim of this event and the whole Rotherham Ready
programme.”
Rotherham’s
Next Generation of Journalists
Relish a Challenge
 On
16th November, over 70 students
from Rotherham schools and
colleges joined with Sheffield
Hallam University students,
celebrity guests, media representatives
and business participants to
square up to a ‘true-to-life’ Journalism
Challenge. The event
was organised by Rotherham’s
School Improvement Team to
launch this year’s Student
Journalist Project working
with the Rotherham Ready Enterprise
Education Programme.
Participating schools included Brinsworth,
Dinnington, Newman Special, Pope Pius, Wales and Wickersley,
together with Thomas Rotherham College. The seven
teams had just 100 minutes to organise themselves and
capture an award-winning story from a sports and media
personality – including researching and getting
the story first hand, with photographs and sound recording.
Each team had access to the kind of
equipment that journalists now rely on - computers,
hand-held reporters, a digital camera, a mobile phone,
an email account, as well as some good old-fashioned
paper. They had to produce a report suitable
for publication in a local or national,
broadsheet or tabloid – and had to organise themselves
to cover a variety of real-life roles including an
overall editor, two section editors, four journalists,
a photographer, a researcher and a runner.
Celebrity guests who faced the glare
of the media spotlight were Alan Knill, Manager of
Rotherham United Football Club, and Amadeus Mozart,
part of International DJ Duo the Tidy Boys.
Gary Keown Editor of BBC Radio Sheffield
led a panel of media, education and business judges
including Tracy Powell from Johnstone Press, Giles
Pepler, recently retired Principal of Thomas Rotherham
College, Charlotte Taylor, Senior Account Manager at
Press and PR Agency HR Media, and Paul Delmar, Head
of The Sheffield College’s award winning photo
journalism team.
Additional media contributors included
Cube Magazine, produced by Sheffield student journalists,
leading regeneration publication New Start Magazine,
and Sheffield Newspapers. IT contributors
included Merlin 360, who provided the hand-held reporting
technology, and Tribal Techhnology.
Gary Keown of the BBC commented: “We
were struck by the quality and imaginativeness of the
presentations. Our reporters often have to work
to tight deadlines, but this was really tough and the
quality was exceptionally high.”
Award-winning photo journalist Paul
Delmar said: “It was great to see the passion
and enthusiasm of these young people. There are
exciting career opportunities for photo journalists
and to get there you need exactly the kind of energy
and flair we’ve seen today.”
Dr Geoff Cutts, Director of Corporate
Partnerships for the Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering
and Sciences at Sheffield Hallam University said: “It
was a great event that demonstrated what can be achieved
by team work – not just by the students, but
also by organisations from across the region who collaborated
to create such a dynamic opportunity to engage in real
vocational skills development for our 14-19 year olds.”
The Journalism Challenge event is
part of an innovative programme of e-journalism being
organised by the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
School Improvement Team to support the English and
Creative Media curriculum. The Student Journalism programme
is funded by the Objective 1 Pathways to Success Programme
which has supported a wealth of vocational study options
to 14-19 year olds in South Yorkshire.
Dr Sonia Sharp, Senior Executive Director
of Children & Young People’s Services, Rotherham
Metropolitan Borough Council said: “The enrichment
activities that we are now undertaking to strengthen
the English and Creative Media programmes in our schools,
in collaboration with partners in Sheffield and in
Further and Higher Education, are helping to create
truly vocational opportunities for our students. We
are particularly appreciative of the high levels of
support from industry professionals from across the
region.”
 Young
people get a voice in Rotherham
Rotherham’s enterprising young people are set to
have a real voice connecting them to their local business
community.
The Music Factory’s Investors In Education team and
the Rotherham Chamber of Commerce have been working together
to develop plans for a Young Chamber, which will give young
people in the borough a voice and a chance to drive forward
enterprise and entrepreneurial thinking.
With help from partners across the borough and sub-region,
including support from Rotherham Ready and funding from
Yorkshire Forward the Young Chamber is being launched in
nine pilot schools.
The launch of the Young Chamber took
place during Enterprise Week when the message was communicated
through a dynamic, youth culture DVD to around 13,000
students.
The Young Chamber will be a body of young people elected
by their peers to represent all enterprise and business
engagement activity within their school and locality. They
will be in charge of budgets, events, social enterprise
and the engagement with local business for the benefit
of all of the school.
Andy Pickles, from the Music Factory said: "Rotherham
is leading the way in enterprise education reinforced through
a recent visit by the enterprise team from the Treasury
Department. We believe the Young Chamber is essential to
enable us to support the enterprise enthusiasm and aspirations
of Rotherham's future Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs."
Each Young Chamber will have a nominated Business Champion
that is an active member of the Rotherham Chamber. This
will enable the Young Chamber to access a wider business
community and have a business expertise resource available
to them at every meeting.
John Lewis, Chief Executive of Rotherham Chamber said: “There
is a real feeling of business engagement in Rotherham at
the moment. With the Young Chamber we hope to develop budding
entrepreneurs and get people from a very early age thinking
about enterprise and the effect it has on local economies.”
A special event is also being planned for 250 students
from Clifton Comprehensive School on Tuesday 21st of November.
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