Year 9 presented a range of superb Dragons' Den style pitches in PSHE recently.
This term the girls have been considering what it means to be an ethical consumer considering issues such as Fairtrade, sustainability, single-use plastics and ethical fashion. The pupils were tasked to work in small teams to come up with ideas for a new social product or enterprise and had two minutes to 'sell' their idea to the group in their Dragons' Den pitch. Creativity, social impact and quality of presentation were the key things the 'Dragons' were looking for and we saw plenty of each.
Team Choco did a particularly good presentation about its offering - sustainably sourced coco with workers being paid fairly. The waste product from the chocolate production was used to make beauty products. Some of the profits were reinvested into charitable development projects.
So Scrunchi plans to sell hair scrunchies with a difference. The plastic band is made from recycled plastic and the fabric is made from cotton farmed in an environmentally way. The workers are paid above the minimum wage and only work 7 hours a day.
Cased - a case from your waste - was also planning to champion recycled goods with its Eco phone case designs aimed at a young target market and 70% of profits being invested back into various environmental charities.
Mums Gym was looking at a quite different social problem and target marking - aiming to get new mums back into the gym and able to keep fit by offering reasonably priced gym memberships with childcare and family friendly activities built in.
Enviropens - Refill not Landfill - explored the quite retro idea of returning to refillable pens to reduce the plastic wastes generated plastic pens and ink cartridges.