Social Enterprise

Year 10 students have been involved with their Social Enterprise volunteering projects this term to benefit our local and school community. Students also get to develop new or existing interests in a range of different ways that can provide them with new skills ideal for job or university applications. These include: Catering, Community Arts, Young Enterprise and Maths - Enabling Enterprise, EcoSchools, School News, Community gardening, Media, Sports and Dance Leadership qualifications. Successful students gain an additional accredited qualification for work completed in their chosen project.

2010 has been a great year for Social Enterprise with our Year 10 students being involved in engaging enterprise projects that have had a range of community benefits. All students have also been successful in gaining a Community Volunteering Qualification which is the equivalent grade to a GCSE B. However, the real achievement is in the huge range of new skills students have learnt and developed over this academic year. These will help our students stand out from the crowd in their applications for places at University, College or within the world of work. In feedback at the end of the course, 96% of students said that they were interested in Enterprise and 84% agreed that it should be included in their timetable. This could be partly attributed to the fact that well over half of respondents said that they would like to start their own businesses and be self-employed in the future. Project updates:

• Young Enterprise – A team of enthusiastic students set up a company called Gecko and planned and participated in a range of activities to raise some capital funds. This money enabled them to print a book containing international recipes suggested by staff, students and parents. The book has been hugely successful with profits donated to ActionAid charity.
• Enabling Enterprise – Students have learnt and developed business knowledge and skills to submit successful proposals regarding the creation of a new sport and also presented their ideas to marketing companies. These students have also achieved an NCFE qualification in Enabling Enterprise.
• Sport and Dance Leader – Two groups have been involved in setting up and conducting coaching sessions for Yr7 and local primary school students. The students developed basic communication skills, planned lessons and practiced coaching each other. The dance group performed a choreographed piece at the Royal Albert Hall and also at the annual school dance show, both performances were highly commended. This week the Sport Leader group were awarded their JSLA.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is launching a competition that explores the creative possibilities and career opportunities within the video game industry. The UK gaming generates over £3 billion each year and is the UK’s fastest growing industry. The BAFTA Young Game Designers competition invites teams of three young people aged 11-16 to submit a design for a new video game. The main aims of the competition are to promote creativity, help young people understand the different roles within video game design and highlight the key subject areas for entry into the industry. The winning team will receive a prize package that includes a BAFTA Young Game Designers Award; work experience at Bright Light - an EA games studio, and a prototype of the winning game developed with Abertay University. On 14 July, our students attended an event at Walthamstow Academy to launch the competition with 120 school children from across England. They took part in workshops that focussed on gameplay, characterisation, storytelling and environments (how locations and settings impact on games). The speakers included Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter star, Neville Longbottom), and Harvey Elliott, Vice President EA and we watched a Q and A between them about their experiences of gaming and routes into working in the industry. Olivia Sesay-Murray, Ikra Ali and Jasmine Paul were chosen to present their ideas in the final session of the day to all students. They received a special commendation from the judging panel for their unique concept and game play.

One of our Year 10 students carried out a survey at Paddington Academy on Recycling. He broke it down by each year group, and having collected the data he has published the results online. By clicking on the links below you can view the data.

• Results: Year 7
• Results: Year 8
• Results: Year 9
• Results: Year 10
• Results: Year 11
• Results: Sixth Form

At Paddington Academy we’ve been working hard and making fantastic progress on lots of different aspects of sustainability as part of our Social Enterprise – EcoSchools project. We have overcome many challenges this year and one of the most significant has been our success in positively changing the attitudes of 1400 staff and students to start working together towards reducing landfill waste produced by our school. A panel of judges including Veolia and Government Office for London (Education and Skills) assessed our progress compared with all other schools in Westminster, and last week we were awarded the title of ‘Westminster Green School of the Year’. The £750 prize money will be spent on further environmental initiatives.

Some of our successes this year:

• We gained funding to start community food production and will start building a chicken shed at the end of July for rescue hens (their waste will be recycled and eggs used by school and local residents who will help look after the chickens too). We have collaborated on the design with Academy of Arts Architecture students
• We have set up and maintained battery recycling points in school.
• Staff and sixth form canteens composting tea bags and coffee grounds.
• We have built raised beds and established an organic school garden which provides vegetables and herbs for the catering department and some to sell to staff/ students.
• We have appointed two Green Governors
• Fairtrade cake-bake competition to highlight the importance of buying fair-trade to support our global community.
• Created and installed a new screen saver at school to remind staff to switch off projectors and computers at the end of the school day.
• Tutor group recycling competitions- Yr7 collected in excess of 842 cans and bottles in 4 days!
• Staff offices have can and bottle recycling bins
• We built loads of bird boxes for the local community, we put one up in our school and went to local primary schools to give assemblies and donate bird boxes and information.
• We have learnt how to build bee boxes and taught this skill to guests and the garden opening ceremony.
• We went out into the community to regenerate gardens in sheltered accommodation and a local park (Queens Park)
• We painted old plant pots to make gifts for people
• We participated in the BIG Tidy Up and collected 11 bags of rubbish from local streets.

Next year we would like to focus on increasing the size of the school garden so that we can grow enough produce to sell locally and use the profits to fund the maintenance of the garden so it becomes a self sufficient operation. We also will be extending our recycling programme school wide and looking at alternative waste to recycle and reuse – one idea is to recycle some of our lost property clothing to make new items of clothing for a fashion show. Another is to print and sell recycled plastic memory sticks to support our Ecoschool initiative to submit all assessed work electronically via our VLE. This will significantly reduce our paper wastage!

Paddington Academy was delighted to finally cut the ribbon at the Grand Opening of the Organic Garden the students have worked on with so much dedication. The event is part of the Go Green Campaign, which Paddington Academy students initiated last year as part of their Social Enterprise course. The Social Enterprise was awarded £500 by Westminster City Council towards creating an organic garden at the school. The students worked hard: they measured the area and carried out a whole school survey to find out what the community wanted in their garden. A dedicated team of Year 10 Social Enterprise students have been learning horticultural skills through community regeneration schemes, in addition to volunteering with the grounds people at Queens Park. The students passed a health and safety qualification and have an accredited 5 year registration with Land Based Operatives of the British Association of Landscape Industries. The enthusiastic Year 10 also worked with a commissioned graffiti artist to design and paint a beautiful sunset mural on the west wall of the garden. Produce from the garden has already been sampled by staff and students, and will be taken to the staff room and sold in order to generate a profit. It is hoped that in the future enough produce will be grown to generate further expansion of the project in a community orientated and sustainable way.

Eco-Friendly in the Community Paddington students raise the profile of environmental issues in the community A group of Social Enterprise students have been promoting Paddington Academy's green credentials in our local community since last term. The Year 10 students Eco-Team visited Essendine and St Saviours primary schools to give an assembly presentation about their work towards a Green Flag and to donate bird boxes to encourage biodiversity in the urban area. Both primary schools are keen to visit Paddington Academy and work more closely in the future to achieve the green goals! As part of the Young World Foundation programme the Eco-Team also ran a workshop for Year 11 students to make a short film that encourages other young people to become more environmentally friendly. The footage will be, very soon, available for viewing on the school website.

 Battery Recycling & Composting System

This project enjoyed great success last year – gaining Silver status and a Westminster Young Achiever award. This year the team have not wasted any time on improving Paddington’s environmental impact. Hussain Al-Faloji and John Jelake have co-ordinated a battery recycling point which will be in operation after the holiday in reception – so please bring in your dud batteries from home. Ruth Chenery has built a composting system and installed it near the kitchen to process raw food waste into soil for the garden. She will also be running a staff mini training session on how to compost in January. The team has also built and sited a bird box to encourage wildlife into the school grounds and are researching a free range egg business with our own hens on site!

Our Level 1/2 BTEC Community Art class. Kaywan, Ahmed Saleh, Nora Ahmed, Hussein and Saleem Al –Saidy, Ivan and Trezor supported by the following staff: Laura Snow, Nital Patel, Hoi Chan, Shelley Coles and Louisa Wilkinson have been involved in a gardening project for Social Enterprise at Juniper Hall.

Liz Kelshaw from the Housing with Care services department at Westminister council sent the following email to the Principal, Oli Tomlinson:

"I would just like to say a huge thank you for the work you and the children from Paddington Academy have carried out in the garden at Juniper House. The residents of Juniper love their garden, but most are too unwell or frail to carry out much work, and it sometimes can look almost neglected.
Will you please pass on my thanks to the head of the school. I was most impressed by the attitude and behaviour of all the children who attended over the sessions. These days so many young people are only noted for the bad things and never the good things, when in fact the good things far outweigh the bad.
Again, thanks from me and the residents of Juniper House.
May I wish you, and everyone at Groundwork a peaceful and merry Christmas, and I will see you all in the New Year."
Regards
Liz

A group of Year 10 students with an appetite for enterprise have taken their first steps into business by launching a new company, named ‘Gecko’. A branch of Young Enterprise, they will be running the company for the remainder of the year, before liquidating it and splitting the profits equally between a nominated charity, and social enrichment activities.
Gecko have chosen to produce an international recipe book that reflects the diverse range of cultures from which our students come. They hope to have this in print and available in shops in early 2010. The group are currently fundraising to meet production costs, and recent weeks have a seen a flurry of enterprise activity in school, including staff car washes and cake sales.
Tsegab Getachu, Public Relations Director, said “I am excited by this fantastic opportunity and confident that we have a very marketable product. We’re looking forward to making lots of money for charity, and at the same time sharing something special about our cultures”.
As a pioneering social enterprise, Gecko hope to soon have the services of a high profile entrepreneur who will act as an ambassador – watch this space!
The company comprises of: Jordan Proctor (Managing Director); Mohammed Rab (Finance); Mustakin Miah (Operations); Raphael Mulatu (Operations); Tsegab Getachu (PR); Patricia Akullo (Sales); Al-Hussain Al-Karim (Sales); Shaimar Yussuf (Communications); Andrew Cotelo (Marketing); Shahan Miah (Advertising); Naim Salihu (HR); Alexandros Amadi (IT). They are supported by Sandra Cafazzo and Laura Gutowski, MBA students from London Business School, and Hamish and Jenny (Careers).