This workshop is for teachers and educational practitioners aiming to nurture enterprise talent and potential in others. Teachers of all discipline are welcome but will be of particular relevance to teachers with responsibility for the arts, design, technology, STEM, careers, business studies, and also to those responsible for health and education care plans.

In the shifting, uncertain world now confronting young people, it is essential that they complete their education with a full armoury of the critical-thinking, communication and collaboration skills that might help them confidently shape their futures.

Enterprise learning benefits students because it rewards originality, boldness and persistence, and within the world of enterprise is a place for everyone, including those with unconventional talents or disengaged personalities who sometimes struggle in more academically focussed environments: almost everyone will have read of a successful entrepreneur who has struggled with literacy, numeracy or discipline at school.  Able students too, perhaps quietly comfortable in the knowledge that they are unlikely to fail, can benefit enormously from being exposed to risk-taking and the challenge of being innovative.

The world really is full of opportunities.  However, many go unnoticed.  Enterprise learning shines a light on these opportunities and shows how to take advantage of them.

This full day workshop explores the potential in all of us to be enterprising.  It is designed to provide you with new insights, ways of working, resources and practical guidance to help you to support your pupils make the very most of their enterprising qualities.

An overarching theme of the day will be an exploration of how cross-curricular working can create opportunities, not just for individual projects, but also to facilitate the broader development of a culture within school that fosters and celebrates creativity, innovation and commitment.

Emphasis will be placed on sharing best practice and contextualising the learning within your own area of work. Our approach is to encourage learning-by-doing in a vibrant and informal atmosphere.

This workshop has been funded by Business Durham and is free for secondary schools in County Durham.  For schools located outside of the county, the subsidised cost of the workshop is £100 (lunch included). Places are limited to ensure that participants can make the very most of this so please book early to avoid disappointment.

This workshop is part of a larger enterprise project currently being delivered in County Durham, on behalf of Business Durham delivered by SENhub enterprise partner Create North, an enterprise development organisation that delivers enterprise training and research programmes across the North East.  It is one of the UK’s longest established enterprise animation companies specifically focused helping individuals and organisations to exploit their latent enterprise talents.  Over the last decade the partners have worked with several hundred teachers from across the region to support them to implement enterprise activities in their classrooms.

“I cannot praise Create North enough – they were brilliant and they opened my eyes as to what enterprise training was all about, as well as enabling me to have a whale of a time while learning”.

“The benefits for my school have been immense – both in the way we have been able to introduce enterprise into the whole school community and the way in which the ideas generation methods have enabled us to ‘think outside the box’. As for myself, I am thoroughly enjoying being involved in this continuing professional development programme”.