The children in P4 formed a new jewellery company.  Jo Lochhead, our business partner from the Bead Shop in Haddington, came in to school and showed the children all kinds of exciting beads and things they could make.  She helped the pupils to design some pieces of jewellery and then organised the materials the children chose.  Then the class went to her shop in groups and busied themselves in the Jo’s workshop.  Rings, necklaces and bracelets rolled off the production line.

Back in school the children calculated the mark-up they wanted for each piece of jewellery, working out the cost of material and their own time.  They then priced the products and sent out letters to parents and put up advertising materials round the school.  They planned two sales, one for pupils and one for parents; however the first sale was so successful, the children’s shop completely sold out at the first opening.  The company made £146 profit.  The class decided to give £100 of this to Save the Children, with the remaining £46 being spent on new games and activities for ‘Golden Time’. 

As part of our health week, Primary 1 formed a fruit company.  First they designed their own fruit faces.  They then made posters to advertise their company.  They understood that they needed some capital to start the business so they wrote a letter to Mr Devereux who is the school’s enterprise co-ordinator. He agreed to help provide a start-up fund for their business.  The wee entrepreneurs went along to the Co-op in groups and bought all the fruit they needed.  Their buddies from P7 helped them to cut it up safely and then they arranged the pieces of fruit on plates.  Every class came along to the sale and lots of children (and teachers!) bought the exciting fruit faces

On Tuesday 30^th January the whole school came out to watch the unveiling of our new full size totem pole.  Last year’s P5 pupils designed planned and designed this as part of a project on John Muir.  All of the class entered a competition to create the faces on the pole and the four winning entries were then marked out on a good quality tree trunk.  The whole class helped to chisel out the timber with professional help from local sculptor, Robin Wood.  We made contact with Robin through one of our business partners, the Chippendale School of Furniture.

 The pole was set in the ground by one of our parents who is an professional fencer (enclosing fields, not using swords!).  Ms Pinkerton, the NQT who led the project with P5 last year, officially unveiled the totem pole in front of children, staff and local press.

This term we took a group of children to a business breakfast.  This was organised by East Lothian Council and was an opportunity for business leaders to learn about the benefits of business partnerships.  We have five business partners and were delighted to be able to help.  Two pupils from P4 spoke about the jewellery they had made and sold as a result of the school’s partnership with the Bead Shop in Haddington.  One of our P7 girls talked about the website she helped build with help from the Council’s Museum Service and another P7 pupil told everyone about the placement one of our staff was having at the Chippendale School of Furniture.  The children spoke very confidently and enjoyed the reward of some bacon rolls.