Young Enterprise

The Young Enterprise Scheme at Oxford High School, running here since 1989, is where girls in Year 12 set up and run a business for a year.  They learn how to write Business Plans and Company Reports, producing, selling and marketing products in school and the wider world.

Our Young Enterprise students have written children’s books, a student guide to Oxford, a cook book and a teenage survival guide.  They have produced hand-drawn prints of Oxford, a CD of local bands, a revision aid box, diaries, wristbands and have developed a bar-code system for dealing with out-of-date food in supermarkets.  Recently, one group designed an environmental board game, ”Mission Earth”, the concept of which they have sold to Gibsons Games, who have produced 10 000 of them, available in leading shops.  This year, one group has sold bracelets, another offered musically-based services and the third have designed leather and batik bags and have imported the finished products from India and Indonesia.

Throughout the last 12 years, all of the groups have been brilliantly mentored by Graham Varney, a local businessman.  Graham was awarded the Young Enterprise South East Business Adviser of the Year in 2008 and the National Business Adviser of the Year in 2010.  His advice and belief in setting no limits on the potential of our girls have enabled them to demonstrate their impressive business acumen.

Groups have made pitches to a national board game company, several national supermarkets, negotiated deals in Indonesia, India and China, have held a meeting at the European Commission in Brussels and dealt with issues involving intellectual property, patents and exchange rate risk.  They have pitched to national companies and sold internationally.  They have even hired a real live owl to help with their marketing of their children’s book.

They have been featured in articles in the Oxford Mail, Oxford Times, the Financial Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian and on Central News and Reuters Television.  In the last 8 years at Oxford High School there have been 17 Young Enterprise companies, involving 215 sixth form students, which have, between them, won 63 Young Enterprise awards at local, county, regional and national level.  This year, there are 35 students, in 3 companies in Year 12.  Of the last 8 Oxfordshire Finals’ winners, 7 have been from Oxford High School.  Of these, 4 have gone on to win the south east competition, including the last 3 years in a row, progressing to the national finals.  In 2011, we came third nationally, out of more than 2200 participating companies across the UK. 

All of the girls have developed team work and public speaking skills and develop the confidence to take a risk.  Many have gained employment in later life purely because of the scheme.  They have also given back to our school community, mentoring Year 9 and Year 11.  Young Enterprise is just one of the many extra-curricular activities on offer in our flourishing sixth form.  As the Tatler recently said, Oxford High School “remains a remarkably unpressured environment in which to succeed”.  This is as true of the business education on offer, through Young Enterprise, at Oxford High School, in the sixth form, as it is of our academic success.

Young Enterprise 2011/12

This year there have been three Young Enterprise companies; Spires, Opus and Quad.  Spires have focused on producing engraved bracelets which can be personalised and have sold these in school.  They have gained a huge amount from the scheme in many ways - as much from the ideas they had to abandon as for their final products which have been a huge success. 

                                                       A bracelet fromSpires     

At the Oxfordshire County Finals in May, Opus won the Oxford Mail Media Award for publicity and the Oxford Instruments Award for Innovation.  They also have continued with their musical services by providing their BodyBeating activity to local schools as well as in school.  They have been fantastic ambassadors for the school and recently delivered a BodyBeating session with Year 9 to an outside visitor.

A BodyBeating session from Opus

Opus also organised an assembly at the Junior School where the girls joined in with a range of singing, chanting and clapping.

At the Oxfordshire Finals, Quad won the award for Best Financial Management and the overall award for the Best Company and represented Oxfordshire at the South East Finals in Horsham in June.   The company, made up of 12 girls in the Lower Sixth, specialises in the design and production of laptop briefcases and handbags made with 100% buffalo skin leather and authentic purses and various handbags exclusively designed and created by the company using the traditional Indonesian textile Batik.

Batik Tulis and Batik Cap are unique, traditional Indonesian fabrics which are hand-woven and by using a mixture of wax and dye create stunning patterns and colours. Historically worn by the nobility, Batik is made with a very high level of craftsmanship and before QUAD was launched authentic high quality Batik was unavailable in the UK and Europe. The group is confident that their range designed at home in Oxford and manufactured in Indonesia will bring innovation to a saturated fashion market.

In eight months QUAD has transformed from being a group of students who met in a small politics classroom on a Wednesday afternoon, to a successful company. Along the way they have communicated in foreign languages, battled exchange rates and a nine hour time difference, and researched meticulously to find the best factory in Indonesia where the expertise of handmade Batik lies. Hard financial negotiations and the establishment of good relations with their manufacturers enabled them to deal with global manufacturers, and taught them about shipping duty, exchange rates, import tax and the importance of detailed financial risk analysis. They have even drawn up their own standardised ethical agreement to ensure the working and pay conditions in their factories are compliant with UK ethical laws and a representative was sent to the factory to ensure that these specifications were met.

The experiences gained in marketing and sales were just as beneficial to their development as a company. They enjoy the creative side of advertising their products, producing a full-length film advert for the whole range with professional models, They also signed a contract for a media partnership with Lex Wolf Photography and have conducted several photo shoots which capitalise on the beauty of Oxford. Handbags from QUAD are soon to be stocked in the Powder Room in North Oxford and negotiations are being made with several major retailers who have expressed interest in the collections.

The girls say that the most important thing they have learned is the role of motivation and inspiration within any well-functioning company. Working well as a team has allowed them to maintain their business-like spirit even in the face of problems which, at times, they felt were too vast to overcome. They are now preparing for the next heat of the competition whilst dedicating their efforts to selling and processing orders for the successful Batik Collection and their Leather Collection. Long term, they hope to launch QUAD into the fashion market for good.

Quad winning at the Oxfordshire Finals   

At the South East finals in Horsham they won the award for the Best Marketing and Sales.  This was out of a total of 365 companies across the South East of England.  Sales of their leather briefcases, handbags and batik bags have been strong and they are pursuing exciting developments for the sale of their bags outside school.  They performed admirably under intense scrutiny of their finances, delivered a polished presentation and were highly commended for their ambition and financial acumen by the judges. 

Quad at the South East Finals

Twelve of the students from a mixture of the companies also helped mentor the Year 9s on their recent Lobbying Day.  This provided the Young Enterprise students with leadership opportunities as well as to see what it was like on the other side of the fence!  Other Young Enterprise students also launched Young Enterprise to next year’s potential Young Enterprise students at the Year 11 Introduction to the Sixth Form day.

Young Enterprise 2010/11

This year there are three Year 12 Young Enterprise companies, who are running their own businesses; Cosmic, Echo and Rouge Enterprises. Cosmic have been selling pashminas this term and are now developing a new exciting product that they are currently designing. This should be available next term.

Members of Cosmic

Echo have sold bulbs on Open Evening and have been organising a Year 8 social event. They are now developing a new product that is well under way.

Echo selling at Open Evening

Rouge Enterprises have already been selling their product and are now concentrating their focus on the market out of school selling to other businesses. This promises to be a challenging but rewarding experience for them.

Members of Rouge Enterprises

Mission Accomplished

Mission Earth, the environmental board game from last year’s Young Enterprise company, Cosmic, is now on sale in the shops. They sold 50 games in the run up to and during Open Evening. It is available on Amazon and in leading toy shops in Oxford but check first in case it has again sold out. The girls who designed it gave a signed first edition copy to the school that is displayed, along with Young Enterprise trophies, in a new glass cabinet in reception.

This exciting game has a review below.

Mission Earth – the race is on to save the planet!

Recently, we were sent a new board game to review (I do love surprise parcels!).

Mission Earth is a brand new board game from Gibsons for 2011 that’s fun, informative and also highlights the issues of global warming and the importance of looking after our planet.

Even more impressive, is that Mission Earth is the brainchild of a group of school girls from Oxfordshire, who as part of the Young Enterprise Scheme, designed a board game for children that’s not only great fun to play, but will also raise awareness for an issue close to their hearts.

‘It’s not all doom & gloom! Mission Earth may be a race against time to prevent an impending environmental disaster, but the race is challenging and exciting too!’

The game is set 100 years in the future on a polluted Earth where you, young Earth Heroes with special powers, must save the planet. Negotiate the spiral path through space with a simple throw of a dice. Brings the message home that we must act now to save our planet! To continue on your quest, players must answer one of the 322 questions from the Chance, Action and Question categories and with topics ranging from recycling to wildlife, energy saving and greenhouse gases, players will learn interesting facts along the way.

‘The game also incorporates a special team play element where players can work in groups and use their correct answers to help another member reach the all-important finish line, Earth. This additional element not only supports co-operative play, but emphasises that children achieve more when they work together.’

The game is great fun – I did wonder if my children would be interested, but they thoroughly enjoyed playing have actually said that it’s ‘really cool’. High praise from two ‘tweens’, I reckon!

One of the things I really like about it is that it does indeed, ‘practise what it preaches’, and the game is to be manufactured in the UK with the playing surface being created from the box, ensuring no extra packaging is required. The board folds up into a box shape, and the smaller pieces and cards are placed inside, then slid into a cardboard sleeve. This guarantees a smaller carbon footprint and the potential for future carbon saving if kids learn how to save energy for their own futures!

All in all, a really lovely game and if the kids enjoy playing, and it’s educational too, then it gets a thumbs up from me.

Young Enterprise success at National Finals

Oxford High School Young Enterprise company, Cosmic, came third at the Young Enterprise National Finals held at the Savoy Hotel in London from Monday 11th to Wednesday 13th July 2011. Their environmental board game idea has been bought by a leading national board game company. Ten thousand of their games will be on sale in the shops before Christmas.

The students set up a trade stand, were interviewed by a panel of judges and gave a five minute PowerPoint presentation to five hundred people at the Savoy Hotel. Coming third overall meant they received a cheque for £500. They are now re-forming their company to receive royalty payments for their environmental board game that they designed.

Young Enterprise Success at Regional Finals

Cosmic triumphed again by winning the South East Regional Finals at Horsham in June. They defeated companies from 8 other regions to win through to the National Finals that will take place from Monday 11th to Wednesday 13th July 2011. This is a wonderful achievement and reflects the tremendous business acumen of the members of Cosmic.

Young Enterprise success at the Oxfordshire County Finals

Congratulations to two of Oxford High School’s Young Enterprise companies, Cosmic and Echo.  Both won through to the Oxfordshire Final of the competition.  At this very competitive county final, Echo won the Carter Jonas Award for the Best Presentation.

Echo

Cosmic won three awards; the Ems2 Award for Environmental Sustainability, the Oxford Mail Media Award and the Oxford Instruments Award for Innovation before winning the Young Enterprise Oxfordshire Company of the Year 2011

Cosmic

They now progress to the South East Finals in June.  Cosmic have produced an environmental board game that is now being produced and distributed by Gibsons games from September in up to 1500 outlets in the UK. They will earn impressive royalties from the agreement they have signed and we look forward to being able to purchase their game in the Autumn.

Click here to read all the news for YE-2010-11.

Young Enterprise 2009/10

This year there are two Young Enterprise companies; Azure and Oxygen.

Azure have sold a wide variety of colour-changing mugs.

They have sold at Cowley and Stratford Trade Fairs and at Cowley were awarded the prize for marketing and runner up Business Plan.

They have also been finalising their plans to sell colour-changing mugs in bulk to companies with their company logos on the mugs.

Azure won through to the Oxfordshire Finals of the Young Enterprise competition where they won awards for the Best Company Report and Best Marketing and Market Research.

They were complemented at the Oxfordshire Finals for their understanding of exchange rate risk in their importation of mugs from China.

Oxygen have been selling a selection of prints from a member of their group which funded their main product – a children’s book entitled “Footsteps through Oxford”.

They have sold a large number of prints in and out of school throughout the year which have been of a really high standard at events such as the school’s Open Evening pictured below:

Members of Oxygen wrote and illustrated their children’s book “Footsteps through Oxford” which sold over 80 copies in the first three days of its release. They have plans for a sequel in London and for translating the book themselves into various foreign languages.

Further Young Enterprise Success

One of the school’s Young Enterprise companies, Oxygen, has won the South East Finals of the Young Enterprise competition in Maidstone on 16th June. They produced prints that they drew and a fabulous children’s book that they, themselves, wrote and illustrated. They are now developing their marketing of the product and have plans to translate the book themselves into French, Spanish and Russian as well as write a sequel. There were 371 companies who have participated in the south east of England region, consisting of 4820 students and the 12 members of Oxygen won the award for the Best Overall company in the South East of England. Very well done to:

• Isabella Craft – Joint Managing Director
• India Sehmi – Joint Managing Director
• Isabel Barne
• Francesca Butterworth
• Florence Cahill
• Philippa Davies
• Lara Good
• Livi Jefferies
• Sonali Patel
• Lucy Prendergast
• Lauren Steele
• Freya Sydney-Smith

They now go on to represent the South East of England from the 12th to 14th July at the Young Enterprise national finals in London. This is a fantastic achievement and a credit to all of the girls involved.

Young Enterprise 2008/09

This year there have been 35 Year 12 members in 3 Young Enterprise companies; eclectic, Kite and Spice. All three have now produced written reports and have entered the Young Enterprise competition. All three companies have won through to the Oxfordshire Finals taking place on the 20th May at the Said Business School. Eclectic and Spice won through as heat winners of the Central Oxfordshire competition and Kite have also won through. Kite were also awarded £150 of book tokens for the most innovative Young Enterprise company in Oxford.

Eclectic and Spice - joint winners of their heat

This year eclectic have written, illustrated and printed a multilingual children’s book Frideswide the Owl. Frideswide the Owl is a lovable, if slightly arrogant Oxfordian owl whose friend Darwin (the rat) asks him a very tricky question:

“What is the most precious thing in the world?”

In order to find the answer to this question, Frideswide travels the world, making new friends and learning about different cultures and languages. Within the group, they learn or speak 8 foreign languages, and aim to encourage children to enjoy learning foreign languages as much as they do. They had a very successful day at the Cowley Trade fair last term where they hired a live owl as an extremely successful marketing tool for their stand.

Eclectic with their owl at the Cowley Trade Fair

Having already sold over 200 books they have now translated their book into Mandarin and Hindi themselves. They are now in the process of trying to arrange a deal in India for selling 10000 books jointly in Hindi and English with a publisher in Mumbai. Eclectic are also pursuing a similar ideal in Shanghai for 2000 books jointly in Mandarin and English as well as a serialisation of the book in a regional newspaper. They won through to the Oxfordshire finals of the Young Enterprise competition which will be on 20th May, having produced a 10 page written report, given a five minute PowerPoint presentation and answered questions at their trade stand.

Eclectic at the Oxford heat of their competition

 

Kite have sold a range of hoodies last year including for Anything Goes.

Having sold 137 of these they have now proceeded with their main product, a Date Incorporated Barcode System, allowing companies to track, by computer, the use-by dates of their stock. They have had a high level meeting with Sainsbury’s at their Head Office in London for two hours in March and have another scheduled soon to progress their idea. Sainsbury’s have told them that Kite have found a gap in their systems as currently they have to spend approximately £13 million each year checking stock manually in their stores on a daily basis. Kite are unable to release too much detail about their product in order to protect their idea.

The Date Incorporated Barcode System

Particular thanks go to Malcolm Sadler who met with them and whose help was invaluable in preparing them for their first meeting with Sainsbury’s. At the Oxford heat of the Young Enterprise competition, Kite were awarded £150 of book tokens as a prize for the best company for innovation. They are waiting to see whether they have progressed to the next round of the competition to the Oxfordshire finals which will take place on 20th May.

Spice have successfully written, illustrated and sold their book for teenage girls in the context of the credit crunch, maintaining a very high standard in what was a very short space of time in which to produce the book. They have sold heavily in and out of school including very successfully at Cowley trade fair last term, where they were awarded the prize for the best stand on the day.

Spice's award-winning stand at the Cowley Trade Fair

They have gained significant local publicity in the Oxford Mail, Oxford Times and are in contact with the Daily Telegraph. Spice have now started a new product which is city walk card of Oxford which are to be on sale soon. This exciting new product is likely to be the first in a range of similar walk cards for other cities such as Stratford, Cambridge and Bath. Spice have won through to the Oxfordshire finals of the Young Enterprise competition which will take place on 20th May.

Spice at the Oxford heat of their competition

Young Enterprise National Finals July 2009

Many congratulations to eclectic on their outstanding performance at the Young Enterprise National Finals held at the Park Lane Hotel and Hilton hotels in London. Despite the Park Lane hotel flooding, the students were not deterred from giving a superb presentation, as well as fielding questions expertly from a panel of top judges in the competition. They are now concluding their international deals and have reformed their company.

Eclectic members at their Trade Stand at the Hilton hotel.

Young Enterprise South East Finals 2009

Eclectic were outstanding at the South East Finals of the competition winning the overall award for the Best Company as well as the Award for the Best Innovation.

They now progress to the National Finals taking place at the Park Lane Hotel in London from Monday 6th July to Wednesday 8th July. We wish them every success.

Young Enterprise Oxfordshire County finals – 2009

Congratulations to eclectic who won the Young Enterprise Oxfordshire County Finals at the Said Business School on Wednesday 20th May. They now progress to the South East Finals on 18th June in Horsham.

Eclectic won the award for the Best Financial Report, the Challenge Cup for Marketing and Market Research and the Oxfordshire Shield for the Best Company. Kite were awarded the Unipart Automotive Cup for the Best Company Report and Spice were awarded the Best Presentation. Well done to all of the Year 12 girls on a fabulous night of success.

Young Enterprise Central Oxford Finals – 2009

Congratulations to Eclectic, Spice and Kite, all of whom won through their Oxford heat in the Young Enterprise competition. Eclectic and Spice were the two winners of their heat and Kite have now also progressed to the next round that will take place on 20th May. Kite also won £150 of book tokens for the best innovation of any company in Oxford. Well done to all of those involved in Year 12.

Young Enterprise 2007/08

This has been another hugely successful year for the two Young Enterprise companies, The Nouveau Company and Kaleido.

The Nouveau Company published their guide to Oxford for language schools and have completed the very impressive task of selling all of their remaining stock out of a print run of 3000. They were awarded the Oxford Mail Award for the best publicity of a company in Oxfordshire and the Oxford Computer Consultants Award for the Best Website in Oxfordshire.

Kaleido completed their compilation CD of local bands and were able to arrange selling them in W.H. Smith in Oxford one Saturday in May. In the competition, Kaleido won awards for the Best Financial Report, the Unipart Automotive Cup for the Best Company Report and the Grant Thornton Shield for the Best Company in Oxfordshire. They won through to the South East Finals in June in Horsham where they won the ICSA Good Governance Award and the Best Written Report and were the Runner Up Company in the South East out of four hundred companies.

Both companies have held their Annual General Meetings and have paid back their shareholders with a 20% dividend. They also both successfully nominated their Business Adviser, Graham Varney, for an award, who was given the prize for the Business Adviser of the Year in the South East. Many congratulations go to Graham who has been invaluable for his help in running the Young Enterprise scheme at Oxford High School for many years.

Young Enterprise 2006/07

After last year’s success with the OHS company Jinx reaching the National Finals of the Young Enterprise competition, a record 25 sixth formers are participating in the scheme. For the first time there are 2 companies, Zest and CoCo. Below is a summary of their exciting activities to date:

Zest is one of the Oxford High School Young Enterprise Companies for 2006-7. Our managing Director in Sneha Sinha and the other members of the team are Savitri Tan, Lucia Chen, Hannah Huang, Yuchen Jiang, Angela Zhou, Natasha Morrison, Emily Matthews, Georgia Kersh, Nicole Dulieu, Emma Robinson, Maddy Kavanagh, Joanna Stainer, Alice Lacey and Jess Wyatt.

For our main product we have decided to manufacture ‘Green Ideas Diaries’. These are diaries made from recycled paper with tips and quotes to do with recycling inside. We feel that recycling is socially relevant to our lives today, and as many people are trying to become more involved with recycling, our product will not only be actively recycling, but also helping other people to recycle more efficiently.

COCO is one of the two young enterprise companies running in Oxford High School this year. We began the company in September and it now consists of ten members from years 12 and 13.

After much deliberation we eventually chose mugs as our initial product. We offer two types of mugs; plain and colour changing. There is also the option of personalised mugs; you can have writing, logos and pictures of your choice printed onto either plain or colour changing mugs.

Colour changing mugs will change colour with heat, you can choose between two colour changes: blue to white mugs or black to white mugs. If you order a personalised mug, the writing and picture will appear once heat has been added, i.e. when you pour hot water into the mug. These make ideal gifts for your friends and family, as well as liven up your kitchen. We chose these mugs as our product because we liked the innovative colour changing aspect.

So far we have been successful at running our company and have gained a lot of real-world experience. In order to expand CoCo’s business opportunities we have also begun selling a range of bags, purses and accessories made from recycled juice packs – which are made of non-biodegradable foil and plastic packaging that would otherwise go into landfill sites and incinerators. These Bags are made for us in the Philippines by a women’s cooperative, the Women’s Multi-Purpose Cooperative based near Manila. The cooperative produces approximately 500,000 bags and household items per year, thus preventing many millions of juice packs from being burnt, buried or littering the streets and waterways.

We are also in the process of discussing new ideas and preparing for a competition and trade fairs in the coming months. We hope CoCo will do well in both of these!

Young Enterprise Update – February 2007

We, as Directors of the company feel that CoCo has progressed and achieved a lot in the last couple of months. We participated in the Cowley Trade Fair, in which we won the award for “Highly Commended on Customer Service”. The sales of our mugs and our bags are going well and we have been at many events both in the Senior Department and have been kindly allowed to participate in events organised by the FOXHS. We would like to say thank you to Daryl Back who has been very supportive at those events. We are hoping to organise events at the Junior School next term.

The development of our new exciting product is well under way and we will unveil the results of the extensive research we have carried out later in the year. We are currently working on putting together our Company Report and entering the Competition as well as preparing for the Young Enterprise exams.

So, as you can see, we have been very busy, but we enjoy doing our jobs. We hope those of you who have purchased our mugs and bags have enjoyed them, and we look forward to selling many more of our products later in the year.

Young Enterprise 2005/06

Oxford High School’s Young Enterprise company for 2005/06 is JinX. The team is composed of 18 Year 12 students: Jenny Boon, Jade Chen, Tessa Coates, Harriet Collier, Katie Jones, Susannah Keene, Lauren Mckay, Rachel McKay, Anna Montague-Johnson, Chandni Patel, Christiane Pearson, Rebecca Ptaszynski, Carmel Sandler, Rosie Simm, Kate Simpson-Wells, Pippa Smith, Louisa Townson and Sherry Zhang. Our link teacher is Mr Gallacher and our business adviser is Graham Varney. We meet twice a week, once after school and once during our general studies slot, to discuss our product’s progress and future plans for the company. Our mission statement is:

“To create a magical, stimulating and educational experience for children everywhere through the power of imagination.”

This year, the JinX team have written, illustrated and secured a publishing deal for a children’s book about JinX: the Magical Cat, inspired by the company’s name. Our book has been supported by Korky Paul, a well-known local illustrator, whom we contacted to ask for advice on the illustrating of the text. We have also designed and personally manufactured bookmarks with a small pewter pendant to accompany the book. If we are successful in promoting and selling our product, we plan to design other spin-off products, such as an audio version of the stories or children’s colouring books. We also plan to obtain purchasing deals with local bookshops in order to widen our market.

Throughout the writing, illustrating and publishing of our book, we have not only learnt a great deal about setting up and running a successful business, but we have also learnt a lot about all the work that needs to go into producing such a product, and all the team members have benefited from this very interesting experience.We have also had a lot of help from various people, notably Korky Paul, who helped us with our illustrations and layout of the book, being a well-known national illustrator.

We are also pleased to find our book available for purchase on the Amazon website.

Cowley Trade Fair – 28th January 2006

The Cowley Trade Fair was a great success for this year’s team. We sold 35 of our books, making £245 on the day. The Oxford Mail is planning to write an article about us and has also agreed to review our book – which is a huge step forward! We also picked up two awards at the trade fair, and came runner-up in the other two. The two awards we won were The Best Trade Stand and The Innovation Award, which are shown below, along with photos of our stand at Cowley. As a team, we are very pleased with the outcome of the trade fair and proud of our achievements so far.

 

As a result of our success, we plan to contact other media such as news channels, radio stations, bookstores and other newspapers. We also hope to be successful at the Oxford City Young Enterprise competition, to then hopefully move on to the Oxfordshire and South-East competitions. We are currently working hard towards these competitions, and towards publicising our product outside of school and around Oxford.

The stand at Cowley Trade Fair

Explaining the story so far…

Young Enterprise Oxfordshire County Final – 15th May 2006

This year’s Young Enterprise company Jinx had an extremely successful time at the Oxfordshire County finals of the Young Enterprise Competition. They were awarded;

The Oxford Mail Award for the best publicity,

The AC Neilsen Challenge Cup for Marketing and Market Research and

The Grant Thornton Shield for the Best Company.

They now go on to represent Oxfordshire in the South East Regional Finals on Wednesday 21st June.

Young Enterprise South East Finals – 21st June 2006

Jinx had a superb day at the South East Young Enterprise finals winning the best company report and the best overall company. They now go forward to the national finals in July in London where they will compete against companies from around the UK in a three day competition.

Young Enterprise National Finals – 16th-18th July 2006

Jinx, the Young Enterprise company from Oxford High School had a very enjoyable experience at the National Finals of the Young Enterprise competition at the Savoy in London. They were interviewed by five judges, including Ansell Henry from The Apprentice fame, as well as attending a question and answer session from the same judges. They also gave a presentation in front of 500 guests including Phil Hope MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills and Tanny Gray-Thompson the athlete.

They were highly commended for the quality of their product and the fact that they managed to sell 25 copies of their book in less than 30 minutes to assembled guests the previous evening. Overall, the company reached the finals out of 3700 companies and over 44 000 students who participated in the scheme. Well done to all those who attended.

Jinx on Central News

Jinx, this year’s Young Enterprise company, appeared on Central News on Saturday 8th July. This was a feature outlining their hugely successful children’s book that they have written and illustrated themselves. They are representing the South East of England at the National Finals in London from 16th to 18th July.

Young Enterprise 2004/05

Mint is Oxford High School’s Young Enterprise company for 2004-2005. This year the team is composed of Hannah Allworth, Sophie Caldecott, Giulia Cerundolo, Erica Donaghy, Tabitha Goodall, Becky Hammersley, Sarah Johnston, Katie Lee, Charlotte Mardon-Heath, Charlotte Patterson, Anna Shepherd, Zoe Smith, Hannah Steiner, Sophie Stuart-Lee, Amelia Spencer, and Anna Tochlin. The link teacher is Mr Gallacher, and Graham Varney is the company adviser. The team meets weekly to discuss ideas, make decisions, and plan future meetings and events. Our mission statement is:

“Mint aims to be innovative & inspiring company, committed to product quality and customer satisfaction.”

Mint’s second product – Recipe Book – “A Taste of Oxfordshire”.

A Taste of Oxfordshire is a community-based project, taking contributions from a number of local sources including Oxford colleges, artists working in Oxfordshire and members of the MINT team ourselves. We have included a selection of delicious and easy to prepare recipes from a number of different world cuisines, to reflect Oxford’s unique multicultural identity.

In purchasing this book you are contributing to a valuable cause as MINT plan to donate a percentage of the profits to the fund for a new children’s hospital at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. The new hospital will provide vital services for children throughout the county and make their time in hospital more comfortable for them and their parents.

Cowley Trade Fair – 19th January 2005

19/01/05 was the Cowley Trade Fair. It was held at the Templars Square Shopping Centre from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. MINT started selling its second product – recipe book. There were lots of positive feedbacks from the general public. The trade fair was successful and MINT sold over £270 worth of products. There was prize giving in the afternoon and MINT won 3 awards!

  

Oxfordshire Young Enterprise county finals at Culham – 4th May 2005

Mint had a very successful night winning through as Oxfordshire’s representative to the regional finals in Horsham on the 22nd June 2005. They won:

1. The Buisness Link Award for the best Business Plan
2. The Oxford Mail Award
3. The Set4Success Best Website Award
4. The AC Neilsen Challenge Cup for Marketing and Market Research
5. The Grant Thornton Shield for the Best Company

The Stand at Culham

The Presentation at Culham