Thirteen regional managers from across the regions will be helping the charity deliver an enterprise masterclass to pupils at St Peter’s Roman Catholic School in Middlesbrough with more than 100 13-14 year-old pupils taking part in the ‘Rollercoaster Masterclass’ which aims to help them identify what skills and attitudes are required to create a business.
Volunteers from the building society will work with the charity to help young people in the region to learn about business, think like entrepreneurs and benefit from meeting and talking to real business people.
Laura Gillespie, Young Enterprise Volunteer Manager for the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “The work of Young Enterprise is more important than ever at a time when more than one million young people are unemployed across the UK.
“However the charity couldn’t continue function without the support of our volunteers.
“Young people really benefit from having the opportunity to interact and learn from real business people and I want to thank the Yorkshire Building Society for their support.
“I hope that together we can create a prosperous and enterprising future for young people in the North East.”
In the Rollercoaster Masterclass, the pupils get to practice their interview techniques when they interview an ‘entertainer’ for a new theme park that is thinking of coming to the area. They form an interview panel and interview two candidates.
They are then asked to build a model rollercoaster to scale with each group responsible for running their own business, preparing a financial plan, buying raw materials and producing a product.
The volunteers work alongside the students giving them advice and steering them in the right direction. At the end of the day the students give presentations and the volunteers act as judges to decide the best company.
Paul Jones
Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media's automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.
