1. Inspiration! The Benefit Campaign
The Benefit Campaign was an enterprising outcome to a Y5/6 topic addressing World War 2 and modern day conflict. Staff planned to address all curriculum areas through the topic, including; Literacy, Maths, History, Geography, ICT, Science, RE, DT and PSHE, however the enterprise focus would be the resulting ‘product’ - a benefit concert, planned and hosted by the children to support the efforts of the ‘War Child’ charity.
In exploring WW2 and modern day conflict, children were tasked to consider the feelings and experiences of children affected by war. Children felt that it must be a horrible experience for others to go without clothes, food, shelter and toys and to this end, came up with the idea of fundraising to help those in need.
Children explored a range of fundraising ideas, seeking to do something different to the usual bake sale or non-uniform day. The resulting idea was a benefit concert.
Children took full responsibility for the planning and delivery of the concert, working with a budget donated by the Head Teacher and securing materials and resources via donations from children and parents. The children created the staging, lighting, held auditions for acts to perform, promoted the event around school and to parents and charged for attendance, programmes and refreshments at the event.
Most uniquely, one group of Y6 children harnessed the musical expertise of their teacher to create and perform their own song to raise funds for the charity War Child. ‘My Fight’ – the charity single created by the children was a hit on iTunes and has received over 3,800 hits on YouTube.
This case study highlights how enterprise and entrepreneurship can be easily woven in to any curriculum topic.
Thinking along these lines, staff should consider how they can embed the Fiver Challenge into existing topic work.
The student work book clearly demonstrates how Literacy, Maths, Art & Design and Science criteria can easily be incorporated into typical project work.
Young Enterprise Fiver Challenge supported by Virgin Money| June 2014