Running the day
What do I need to provide?
- A space for students to work for the day
- A computer with access to the internet (computer access is not required for the whole day so you can rotate sessions between teams if you have more than one)
- A supply of general stationery
- A calculator
Once you have revealed the brief it’s up to your students to organise their time. Tutors and external people can be brought in to help the teams but this should be in a facilitation role, to support and motivate, not instruct or direct. Older students or representatives from local businesses make good facilitators and judges as they are further along the enterprise journey and can offer the benefit of their experiences.
Take a look at information on what facilitation can bring to the competition for students and a brief for facilitators.
Timetable suggestions
- Download our suggestions for how to timetable the day
Warm-up exercises
- Download Selling ice to Eskimos
- Download Recipe for disaster
- Download On the back of a postcard
Top Tips from 2008…watch this space to see who we get top tips from in 2009!
A variety of experts have kindly provided their top tips for all students taking part in the Make Your Mark Challenge, these cover every aspect of what the teams will be required to do.
- Download SpeakersBank presentation tips
- Download John Mullins’ competitors outline tips
- Download Maximum Impacts’ powerpoint tips
- Download Top tips for running the Challenge with SEN students
Revealing the brief to your students
A PowerPoint slide, Word document, and video clip revealing the Make your Mark Challenge brief will be available from the website on Monday 16 November 2009.
What should the teams produce?
When the Make Your Mark Challenge brief is launched on Monday 16 November, students will be asked to create the following items:
- Ideas sheet: Be as creative as you like, it can be typed or contain images and diagrams (suggested format: Word).
- Competitors’ outline: Students must identify the target market, their competitors and demonstrate the unique selling point of their idea (suggested format: Word).
- Money matters: This sheet must include the estimated costs and profit, showing justification for the figures drawn from research. This can be shown in many ways as judges are aware that students will have different levels of financial skills (suggested format(s): Word and/or Excel).
Selecting your winning team
If you have more than one team taking part in an age category for the Make Your Mark Challenge, you will need to select an overall winner to represent your school or college.
Selling the idea: Teams must pitch their idea to a panel of judges, these can be either older students or staff, or you could invite local business people to choose your winning team. Judges should look for innovation, creativity and enterprise.
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