Oakham School pupils have been selling products to fellow students and staff in the culmination of a year-long entrepreneurship activity.

This year marked the third year of the Freddie Groome Enterprise Challenge, a business-led activity set up in memory of Old Oakhamian Freddie (’13), who sadly passed away in 2020.

Four teams of Form 6 (Year 12) pupils worked on establishing retail businesses across the academic year. The pupils worked together to develop their strategies, branding, finances and marketing ahead of a busy marketplace event in which their products were sold to members of the school community.

A large component of the activity was their market research. Pupils sent out forms to staff and their peers in an effort to find out what people would like to see sold and what they do not currently have on offer.

One pupil explained that “we had actually chosen a different product at the start of the process at the start of the project but as we looked back over the filled out forms we changed it for something we could see had a higher demand.”

A wide range of products were on offer. Stationary, grip socks, customisable t-shirts and charm bracelets were the items being sold by each group. Each team approached the challenge in a different way, using different branding and promotional techniques to help generate sales.

The project’s success was recently recognised in the Muddy Stilettos School Awards 2023, being Highly Commended in the Empowering Young Entrepreneurs category.

Another pupil explained that “it has been really interesting learning about how to add value to your product especially through the branding in order to maximise our profits.”

“It has also been really interesting learning about the business in the real world as you do it. We had to look at our costs, how much we were buying the product for as well as where we were going to price the product, taking into account we are selling to other pupils.”