Next stop Dragons Den!

About 80 schoolchildren from St Mary’s Northchurch, St Thomas More and Westfield set the highest commercial standards in the Young Enterprise Fiver Challenge competition this summer.

Given £5 a head to create a money-spinner in just a month, budding entrepreneurs from Years 5 and 6 succeeded spectacularly. As sole traders or in groups of up to six, they tackled all aspects of bringing a product to market and made presentations to judges at Berkhamsted Town Hall on finals day, Friday 8 July.

The Most Profitable idea was St Mary’s GlamGlitter, who raked in £208. Awards for Best Marketing went to Outback Smoothie Shack and for Best Presentation to Sweet Shack, both of St Thomas More; and Best Teamwork to ERDG Cupcakes of Westfield. In the best non-food product category there was a dead-heat between two Westfield projects, Supersonic Keyrings and Crawley Curtain Raisers.

The judges included Berkhamsted Mayor Tom Ritchie and chairman of the Town Hall Trust Peter Elsworth. Tom told the teams: ‘I’m very impressed. All the things you’ve been doing – market research, product development, advertising, pricing and selling – is exactly what companies do. You’ve understood the first important point of business, which is that you need to make a profit. You have made great presentations, and that’s a vital skill. I think you’ve all done fantastically well.’