THOUSANDS of British school-children have until midnight tonight to put the finishing touches to their plans to turn £10 into something special.
In a ground-breaking initiative, 10,000 pupils aged 14 to 18 in 118 schools across the UK have each been given £10 with instructions to try to turn it into something bigger within a month — either by using it to make a profit or to create a positive social impact. They can either work on their own or in teams.
The venture, called Make Your Mark with a Tenner, is the brainchild of businessman Oli Barrett and has been set up in conjunction with Make your Mark, the national campaign for enterprise. The money has been put up by Andrew Reynolds, founder of The Entrepreneur satellite-television channel.
Barrett came up with the idea for the campaign after visiting a school to give a talk about business.
“I realised that young people do learn best by doing stuff and not by reading about business or watching a film about business,” he said.
He hopes that giving £10 to the teenagers and asking them to grow it will unleash a wave of creativity and give them the opportunity to learn about business and enterprise in a practical, hands-on way.
“We are hoping that the participants will realise that, left on its own, money will not grow very fast whereas combined with energy, ideas and enthusiasm it can grow very quickly and really make a difference,” he said.
“Also, I believe passionately that young people are already full of great ideas and positive energy and that they need to be trusted more, and given more opportunities to unleash that energy.
“If a team wants to interpret that as how much money they can make that is fine. But it might instead be how much impact they can have on the people round them.”
Many of the pupils participating have taken to the challenge with gusto.
At Coleg Sir Gar school in Llanelli, Wales, pupils have used the money to record their own versions of romantic songs with personalised messages on CDs, which they are selling for £2 each.
And at Sir John Leman High School in Beccles, Suffolk, two pupils have created a quiz that they have distributed to local retirement homes.
At Walthamstow School for Girls in northeast London three 15-year-olds have formed a business called Bits and Bows to run creative workshops for younger girls at the school. They charge £2 to attend hour-long workshops, which are held once a week after school with activities such as customising clothes, designing cards and making wall hangings.
Since starting the business the three have made £300 profit from their combined initial investment of £30.
Mollie Keane, one of the team, said: “It has been a really great experience. As a group we are quite passionate about individuality and being creative, and being given this £10 has given us the chance to make these workshops happen.
“We are learning how to manage money and budget, and we want to continue the workshops once the project has ended because they have been really fun.” Sheila Thompson, business-studies teacher at Stockwell Park High School in south London, where 100 pupils are taking part in the project, said: “It has been a really good way to get children thinking about business in a wide and diverse way and has been a really positive experience.
“I have been both pleased and surprised by the response from pupils to this, particularly from pupils who have tended not to be too engaged at school.”
At the end of the challenge, the £10 loans will be returned and the participants can decide what to do with their profits — keep them, use them to develop their ideas further or give them to a good cause.
Each of the individuals and teams taking part has been asked to submit 150 words at the end of the competition explaining what they did with their money.
Awards will be given to the 50 teams making the most profit; and the 50 individuals or teams that have managed to make the most positive social impact with their project will be eligible for a £1,000 grant to develop it further.
The pupils must abide by only three rules: their project must not harm other people, it must not be against the law, and their teacher has the right to veto it.
Teachers have been provided with teaching materials and lesson plans that will help their pupils to get the most out of the initiative.
Barrett hopes that his campaign will inspire other people to develop similar initiatives to give young people practical experience of business and enterprise.
He said: “This is just the beginning. I’d like to see other entrepreneurs get on board — £100,000 this year, why not £1m next?”
The campaign has been welcomed by entrepreneurs and academics alike.
Lord Bilimoria, the founder and chief executive of Cobra Beer, said: “Anything that inspires students to look at the path of entrepreneurship should be cheered to the rafters, and Make Your Mark with a Tenner is one of the most unique and ingenious ideas I have heard of to get young people thinking about enterprise and actually having a go.”
David Kirby, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Surrey, said: “The Make Your Mark with a Tenner campaign is precisely what we ought to be doing — getting young people to learn not by rote but by doing.
“Through Make your Mark with a Tenner they will realise their creativity; they will learn how to create wealth not just for themselves but for others; they will learn a lot about business and, importantly, they will learn a great deal about themselves and working with and through other people.
“It will give them the self-belief to enable them to be pro-active — not to wait to be told what to do, but to see opportunities and to bring them to fruition.
“In a world that is changing extremely rapidly, these are precisely the sort of people we need.”
