Why do we go school?to

Knightsbridge School’s Entrepreneurship Initiative.

By Magoo Giles, Principal and Founder of Knightsbridge School

Why do we go to school?’ is a question that I remember asking many moons ago. Well the answer is obvious isn’t it ?

We attend school because we have to. We have to try to prepare ourselves for the world that we find ourselves in when we are deemed to be old enough, wise enough and organised enough to find something that we can do to help us to get through.

Having attended the Dukes conference in January, I listened to Tim Munden from Unilever talk about the ‘100-year life’ and what we need to be able and ready to do in the future; work until eighty by adapting, being healthy (making good choices), and of course a bit of luck. To achieve this it is imperative that we arm our children with weapons that they can use to help them navigate the minefield of life!

On my own particular journey I was never introduced to the idea of entrepreneur and, having very much bulldozered my own career since leaving the forces, it is a critical part of a youngster’s journey to learn how the various parts of the puzzle fit together. Languages, maths, literacy, science, arts, performing arts, music come together in Entrepeneurialism in such a simple way: maths is money, arts is the creativity, science is the working bit, languages are the smallprint/words spread and performance is the salesman and ‘doing’ angle. All came together in 2008, two years after I had set up Knightsbridge School when a 10-year old girl called Naomi, knowing about my entrepreneurial streak, rapped on my door asking if she could show me the dresses she drew. It was like the ‘Cruella de Ville’ moment in ‘101 Dalmatians’ when I saw them and I said that we should also make those dresses. She said that she didn’t know how to but I said that we should ask the teachers and

Miss Kate stepped forward and made the dresses for her friends to wear. There was another boy Alexander who doodled like me and I asked him to think about what he could doodle on for a fashion show and he chose waistcoats for his friends to wear. Another boy Sebastiano drew big pictures using Italian words ‘Amore’ and another Alexandre sang Bond songs. All together we held our ‘First Collection’ in the Assembly Hall with a runway, family and friends and KS Entrepreneur was born.

Every two years we put on a show and it visually improves through each iteration. Initially, the children present their ideas to a panel of teachers. Having reached the next round we then ask KS parent entrepreneurs to introduce the concept of the ‘Four P’s’.. (Product, Placement, Price and Promotion) augmented with the all important S for Sustainability.

After increasingly independent work in after school clubs, the KS Entrepreneurs are set to produce their product to reveal to the community after the holiday period. The staff, parents and all the community support our young business people throughout the process. We also invite independent judges to attend the event and award prizes, including an overall winner.

It really is an incredible process as it brings out the best of the individual whilst promoting teamwork. So many lessons are learned by the KS Entrepreneurs, especially the value of interdisciplinary collaboration. Another significant lesson learned is how to manage time, people, resources and mistakes which can always be rectified in two years time. n