Media Release
6 November 2007

Enterprising students from Witton Park High School, Business and Enterprise College win the Ritherdon Enterprising Innovations Challenge with their idea for secure storage systems.

Great ideas for new products were generated at the Challenge Day held on 5th November at Witton City Learning Centre in Blackburn.

Sponsored by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, it is hoped that events like this will lead to on-going benefits for young people, local businesses and education services alike.

Specialist providers of Enterprise learning events, E4A Limited worked closely with high schools in Blackburn with Darwen and senior managers from Ritherdon & Co Ltd to ensure that young people benefited from this unique opportunity to tackle a real life business challenge.

Teams of 6 students in the age range 14 -19 had just a few hours to come up with new business ideas from scratch. Tackling a real engineering and marketing challenge and working to tight deadlines all helped to create a realistic working environment for the student teams. Peter Dickinson, a Director of E4A says, “Each team looked at the Ritherdon products, researched their competitors’ products world wide, and recommended a new product that Ritherdon could develop to expand their sales this year. The Commercial Director, Brian Derbyshire, was one of the judges. The winning team will get a further insight to the world of work when they take up the offer made by Ritherdon to tour the factory and meet senior managers.”

The Enterprise Challenge was provided in conjunction with the Blackburn with Darwen Pathfinder Enterprise Group with sponsorship from the Borough Council’s Regeneration Fund.

Cllr Chris Thayne, executive member for children's services attended the event and was impressed by the enthusiastic atmosphere. He said, “Working on a real life challenge of this nature gives students the chance to be creative and enterprising and generates high quality learning experience and outcomes for them. Working in partnership with local industry and business fits with our vision for schools of the future which will offer lively, interesting, purposeful and high quality educational experiences for our students. Enterprise training is an excellent way to build better understanding between commerce and education which we hope will lead to more financial well-being in our local communities which in turn will lead to higher achievement amongst our young people.”

Louise Hunt, Maths teacher and Enterprise Manager at Witton Park High School, Business and Enterprise College chairs the borough’s Pathfinder Enterprise Group. She says,” The schools attending today’s event all did extremely well, generating some wonderful ideas for Ritherdon’s to consider.”

Witton Park High School won the Ritherdon Enterprising Innovations Challenge with an idea for a metal tool box designed for use in vans. They had a range of different products which they had costed and compared with the competition on the Internet. Their top of the range product had a touch screen that could record what was in the tool box and its value. This would then be recorded on the web so if the box was stolen they still had a record for the insurance claim.

The photo shows the winning team from Witton Park High School, Business and Enterprise College are from left: Jamie Henderson, Daniel Jose, Huong Phenn, Holly Mayo, Dev and Kane Talbot with, at the back, Brian Derbyshire, Commercial Director at Ritherdon’s, Cllr Chris Thayne and Peter Dickinson, Director with E4A.

For further information and to arrange interviews, please contact Louise Freeman on 0845 054 2552.

Notes for Editors:

E4A is a leading provider of Enterprise Challenge days in the UK. The company streams Business Challenges into schools through the Internet and supports the students’ teamwork with their own trained Business Mentors on the Challenge Day.

With varied backgrounds in senior positions in industry including ICI, HP, British Gas and extensive experience as a self employed business advisor, E4A personnel have also worked as Enterprise Advisors in schools. This developed their understanding of what is required to help students grasp the principles behind enterprise and to develop skills relevant to future employment.

More details on this unique approach to Enterprise learning events for students are at www.e4a.org.uk

More information on Ritherdon & Co Ltd available at www.ritherdon.co.uk .
 

E4A Ltd, PO Box 135, Waddington, Clitheroe. BB7 0AJ
Registered No: 5536957. Registered Office as above.
Tel: 0845 054 2552, Fax: 0845 051 9378
Email: enquiries@e4a.org.uk