On Friday 20th April 2018 10 Year 10 students represented the school at the Dragons Den 9 Competition at the Acacia Centre in Annesley. This was the culmination of this years project in which year all ten students completed some work on resilience working alongside Young Minds and in conjunction with the emerge festival. Student were required to come up with ideas to support the community in becoming more resilient. They competed against Quarrydale and Kirkby College. The entries were all excellent and showed very different interpretations of the brief.

Our winning team came up with the idea of organising a Shakespearean charity run. They contacted Ashfield District Council to plan the site for the run as well as contacting companies to cost equipment for the run. The proceeds of the run would go to Young minds to support their work on mental health with young people and to 2 local charities supporting people with mental health issues. The team designed a company logo as well as personalising all the race equipment. Their hope was to bring the community together with the fun run but also to inspire them to be more resilient by highlighting resilient characteristics of Shakespeare’s characters. Racers will not have numbers but resilient characteristics.

The team came up with the acronym of P.U.S.H standing for Promoting unity and social harmony – the ultimate goal of their project. They presented their ideas to a panel of Dragons including; Wendy Gleave from Young Minds, Cllr Nicolle Ndiweni, Ben Spiller, Paddy Tipping Police and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire.

Students said ‘they were shocked but pleased to have won, that it was great to work as part of a team; it was a great experience; I have learnt about how to be more confident and work together as a team; To be more resilient; I have learnt that hard work and dedication pays off ‘

As winners the team will now have £1000 prize money to make the run happen. So watch this space for how to get involved.

Well done to the whole team- you are a credit to the school and the community, I’m a very proud teacher.
Miss McKenna