Students turn College into Festival Marketplace

This Community Week, our Junior College department teamed up with T Level Business Management and Administration students to host a day of creative learning for Year 6 children from the Churchill School.

On arrival the children were immersed into the theme of the day, ‘Festfun’, by being signed in with event wristbands. After a short briefing and presentation about the world of business and product marketing, the children were divided into small groups, supported by our own students. Teams were tasked with creating their own ‘festival stalls’ including a selection of products and/or services to sell, varying between £5 and £50 per item.

Each team jumped straight to brainstorming, being led by the primary school children’s ideas, some of which included themes such as Harry Potter, Military, Clowns and Sunglasses. Teams were given three hours and unlimited crafting resources to design and create their stalls, which saw plasticine lollypops, carnival games and sleep stations come to life. When we caught up with Junior College student, Florence, she told us about her team’s stall, ‘Circus De Clown’, saying: “one of our primary school students came up with the concept and wanted to do something surrounding clowns, so we helped to expand on that and supported them by coming up with food and drink items that would work within the theme too.”

The event had been planned by Business Management and Administration students, who hoped to introduce the children to the world of Product Management. The event not only aimed to explore business themes, but also improve the children’s creativity, communication and teamwork skills.  T Level student, Isabelle explained: “hopefully the students are learning collaboration skills today, and how to compromise.

Not all team members have had the same ideas, so it’s been a good learning experience for them to navigate how to work together and compromise with one another. We’ve made sure that all children feel including and they’re all working well within their teams.”

Once the market stalls were complete, staff and students from across other departments within college were given ‘money’ that they bring to the ‘FestFun’ and ‘spend’. Teams were tasked with promoting their brands, drawing in customers, and selling their products. Team Snooze was awarded top prize, as the team with the most sales, with The Ultimate Military Experience taking home an additional prize for the most popular product, the ultimate experience target game at £50.

At the end of the day, Katie, the teacher from the Churchill School had nothing but praise for the College and the students involved in making the day so enjoyable for her class. She commented: “The College students have been amazing, so supportive and encouraging. They could sense our children were nervous to begin with but they’ve been really reassuring, it’s been lovely to see them support each child individually and making sure they’ve all got a job within the team. Thank you for having us.”