ECO BAG DAY!

“A day spent making paper bags? What for?” asked one puzzled Year 7 when told about the Eco Bag Day for all Year 7s on October 21st. By the end of the day, he’d found out some mind-boggling facts about environmentally unfriendly shopping bags, learnt how to design a snappy slogan using ICT, made a bunch of new friends, delivered a professional presentation to his entire year group and won a Certificate in Enterprise skills. Oh, yes, he and his team had created a nifty paper shopping bag, too.

This was our second Eco Bag Enterprise Day for the Year 7s, designed to challenge and encourage enterprise skills in teamwork, creativity, decision-making and presentation. Working in teams in their tutor groups, the students had to decide on a shop name, slogan and logo and a suitable bag design for their target market. After a session using ICT to refine their designs, it was back to the tutor base to turn their ideas into reality.

This was when the pressure was on – they had only one hour to create the bag out of wallpaper lining paper (thanks to a generous donation from Homebase) and add their persuasive words and illustrations. Many of the students worked throughout their lunch break to finish their creations which ranged from paper-plaited, circular designs to tinsel-adorned, silver handbags.

Next was to prepare and deliver a presentation and for each tutor group to choose a winning team to enter the finals. But the hardest challenge of all was left to the judges (Mr Young, Mr Thomas and Mrs Wilkinson) who had to pick a winner from the seven teams who repeated their presentations to the entire year group in the Drama Studio. We looked not only for evidence of good teamwork and original, eco-friendly designs but also good presentation skills. And with each team strong in at least one area, the decision was tough. Particularly outstanding were 7SG (a fabulous artistic creation) and 7VL and 7MG for their presentations.

Finally, it was decided to award the boy-band team of 7LS the winning prize for their big, attractive, and globally-aware bag (complete with Chinese writing) and precise, professional presentation. Congratulations to Louie Paradise, Kevin Ntim, Callum Bennett and Corey Szymanski for demonstrating such excellent enterprise skills.
Julia Wilkinson