Pop-up shops at academy raise more than Â£1,700 for children's charity

Winning enterprise teams, from left, Valentin Vlasceanu, Bushra Amir, Eilyaz Noor, Zac Hedingham, Fleur OBrien, Ali Raza, Zaiyaan Ashraff, Mehraan Ali, Halimah Hussain, Yuehan Liu

The year 11 students traded a variety of goods, raising a total of £1,769.40 for CHUMS, the child mental health and emotional wellbeing service, in just a single hour of trading.

Students formed pop-up shops and traded a variety of goods to classmates over two lunchtimes. Students wisely targeted goods to their market.

Valentin Vlasceanu, aged 16, said: “We chose to sell ice pops because the weather was getting warm, and we thought they’d be popular with our customers.”

Fleur O’Brien and Eilyaz Noor, both 16, also learned a lot from the experience. Fleur said: “We went for a high price, low volume strategy, to maximise our profits.”

Eilyaz said: “The experience was really enjoyable and I learned a lot about customer service and working with my team.”

Principal Richard Found expressed his pride in seeing student leaders manage their teams so effectively and professionally, and invest their time and energy into helping others – even during their GCSE exam season.

Team leader Samia Fareer, aged 16, said: “As a team leader for the project I learnt how to manage the resources and organise my team into the correct roles. One of the things I had to learn on the spot is how to ask team members to change roles very quickly as the stalls events were moving quite fast.”

The students presented a cheque to Meg Davies, community fundraising manager for CHUMS, on Wednesday, May 24, at the academy.

Ms Davies said: “Thank you so much for supporting us. As a fundraiser, I know how hard it is to raise money, so raising this amount of money in just an hour is absolutely incredible. The funds raised will support the CHUMS Disability Friendship Scheme, which is a weekly youth group designed to support students with mild to severe disabilities. It also provides respite for parents and carers.

Head of Business, Aabid Khan, said: “The event was a huge success, there was a real ‘enterprise buzz’ in the air. The support from students, staff, parents and guardians was overwhelming. The experience of teamwork, business planning and dealing with customers gave our learners a real insight into the world of business”.