Modern world
Saving the High Street Tim Firth describes an award-winning initiative It may seem as if teens never lift their gaze from a screen, but a group of my pupils have done just that. And, what’s more, they have launched a bid to do what the likes of House of Fraser, BHS and now sadly Coast have failed to do - save the High Street. Now, don’t be too sceptical. They may be fully paid-up members of the online generation, but these 13 and 14 year-olds have come up with a pretty good plan, impressive enough to bag £20,000 in The Young High Street Challenge competition to see if they can make it work in real life - and, yes, on a real High Street. The competition was run as part of a Pride in Our Community Fund, which identified six Midlands towns in need of rejuvenating. That someone thought to let teens have a go is truly inspired and should be a wake-up call for schools across the country. This group has had to think differently about what might work, and there’s a lesson in that for us all - including teachers. Fortnite, Snapchat and their ilk are nowhere to be seen in their Retro Shack idea – a destination shop planned for Wellington in Shropshire which will sell vintage classics and hopefully lure customers off ‘their screens’ and back to the High Street with experience buying. This is about pupils designing and then running a real business. They are negotiating leases with landlords and recruiting staff to run it with hopes to open in January. They
had to pitch their idea to win the cash in the first place and will have an interesting road ahead as they look at supply and demand and how to get people to step across that door for that increasingly elusive footfall that retailers still plying their trade on the High Street so desperately need. I’m delighted this project has shown our teenagers there is life outside Whatsapp, but I’m holding my hand up to say I’m glad it got them to put down their English and Mathematics books for a while, too. There may be a sharp intake of breath at a headmaster saying that, but schools need to do more than just prepare their pupils to pass exams. Of course good grades are important and an indicator of the effort and capacity for analysis required in the work place. But we are letting our children down if chasing those A grades becomes our solitary focus at the expense of all else. It’s a rapidly changing world in which we are now living and every school will have to up its game and look earnestly at doing more to get our children ready for the jobs market. For too long, schools and universities have been producing people who have academic grades but who are simply not ready for the workplace. Employers have faced increasing problems reconciling the CVs of pupils with the person they have just met at interview. The CV suggests high ability, independence and flexible skills alongside sufficient nous, but their new recruit is afraid of the telephone, avoids making eye contact and
Spring 2019
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