Westbourne whizzkids give boost to St Luke's

Date: 01/05/2012. Story submitted by: Gael Stigant

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Whizzkids from Westbourne School have teamed up with some of the best business heads in the city to give a boost to St Luke’s Hospice.

The St Luke's Biz Kids Challenge is a new scheme aimed at forging charity partnerships with local businesses and schools in Sheffield, and raising funds for Sheffield's only hospice.

The six-week pilot project runs until the start of June and involves Junior School pupils at Westbourne, on Westbourne Road in Broomhill.

They are working alongside business leaders from Tata Steel, Northern Creative Print Solutions, Go Outdoors, Hill Dickinson and Irwin Mitchell.

All the businesses are lending £100 as a seed fund and sharing their expertise, providing mentors who will help the school children to formulate their own charitable enterprise to see the funds blossom.

At the end of the six week project, the students will give a short presentation explaining what their activities involved and how they met their key learning objectives.

A judging panel will then choose an overall winning group which is believed to have met their key learning objectives in the most successful and efficient way.

St Luke’s fundraising manager Margot Walker said: “We believe that Biz Kids has the potential to engage students as young entrepreneurs and imaginative fundraisers.

“Students and teachers will benefit from the experts' guidance to make the most of their financial resources and time - and have some fun as they help to raise money for St Luke's.”

She added: “We are delighted that companies are backing the scheme with their time and expertise. Our aim is to roll the project out across every junior school in Sheffield and involve even more businesses from the autumn.”

Westbourne’s junior school headteacher Jon Clark said: "This is not only a great way to get the children to think about other people and social responsibility, it is also a project based around and augmenting their curriculum work.

"By taking part in the Biz Kids Challenge, children will develop their entrepreneurial and business skills through problem solving, product service and design and financial literacy - all things that will be of vital use to them in the years ahead.

The project is also being supported by Rotherham Ready - the children and young people's enterprise project - which provided resource packs for Westbourne free of charge.

Additional info

Address: Westbourne Road Sheffield S10 2QT

Tags: Sheffield, Westbourne School

Web link: http://www.westbourneschool.co.uk/