As part of our Careers Programme, all year 8 students took time out of lessons to participate in the Chocolate Enterprise Challenge. Divided into teams of between six and ten students, they were set the challenge of turning their team into a small business with the aim of creating, packaging and marketing an exciting new chocolate brand.

Students quickly learnt about the structure of a small business and assigned team members to the roles of Managing Director, Marketing & Sales Managers, Buying Manager, Financial Director, Production Managers and Brand & Advertising Managers. Soon it was time to agree upon a brand name, packaging style and how much to spend on materials to enhance their packaging. Meanwhile the marketing, finance and creative experts had to decide on the target market, the cost and pricing structure and the content of their presentation for the launch of the chocolate product.

With so many vital decisions to be made in a short space of time, there was a real learning buzz amongst the year 8 students. Directors needed to use negotiation and conflict resolution skills to inspire and unite their team and all members had to work to a tight deadline to package their product and rehearse their presentation.

Seven teams launched their products in front of a panel of judges; Business teacher; Diana Perez, Media Studies teacher; Craig Scott and Head of Key Stage 3; Jacqueline Brice. The judges were looking for creativity, teamwork, sound financial planning, a strong brand and clear marketing message and they were not disappointed.

Several teams stood out for their creativity: Sugar Dash, Killian Chocolate, Choco Drip and Cacao Delight had strong brands and eye catching slogans and packaging. However, Choccy Boom (Armani, Alexia, Tiziano, Adomas, Franz, Christian, Valeria, Isabella and Eneko) won third place because of their Easter promotions and dodecahedral packaging. In second place came Chocoramel (Arsenij, Santos, Padraig, Sofia Espinosa, Thomas, India, Sander, Kathy and Zebastian) stood out for their slick presentation and sound financial planning.

The overall winners, were Ritzy Rush. They worked as a super professional team with excellent financial planning from Tristan, an impressive social media campaign and website created by Sindre and their advert and packaging were coordinated and beautifully designed by Phoebe and the Advertising sub team. The two Maria’s and Claudia spoke up impressively in the presentation and Oliver led them calmly and maturely, managing and driving the sub-teams to a great end result. He and Claudia gave impressive acceptance speeches acknowledging the amazing support of their whole team and praising the high quality of other teams’ entries.

While all teams had an enjoyable morning and were rewarded by being able to eat individual chocolates, the importance of their hard work should not be underestimated. The Chocolate Challenge put students in work-place roles that were carefully designed to build their teamwork, leadership and communication skills and harness their creative and entrepreneurial talents. We hope that the Chocolate Challenge has inspired our students to become the business movers and shakers of the future.