“The Junior Entrepreneur Programme (JEP) is an entrepreneurial awareness and skills enhancement programme for Primary School children. The programme aims to help children recognise enterprise and entrepreneurship and to foster an awareness and understanding of the entrepreneur’s role in the community, therefore empowering the child to start to think and act with the initiative, creativity and independence that are invaluable in the modern world. The programme is embedded in the principles of the Primary School Curriculum and utilises an integrated teaching and project-based approach to teach many strands of the Primary Curriculum.” (http://www.juniorentrepreneur.ie)
Fifth class pupils first took part in the Junior Entrepreneur Programme during the school year 2014/2015.
The JEP was first launched with all the pupils in Ms. Bourkes and Mr Raftery’s fifth classes. Firstly, they discussed what an entrepreneur was, and listed what characteristics and skills would be necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. The pupils then broke into groups and listed and discussed ideas for a class project. Each group presented their project to the ‘Dragons’ who put them through their paces and after some deliberation chose the project which they felt had the most potential for the whole class to get involved in.
The programme has a significant personal development impact on these children including building their confidence, self-awareness and self-esteem, and an appreciation of each of their individual skills and talents. This innovative programme will open the minds of the pupils to the joy of entrepreneurship at a time when they are full of imagination and open to new possibilities. The programme will help our pupils to develop a number of skills including literacy, writing, presentation, drawing, technology, research skills, numeracy, financial, consumer awareness, storytelling, listening skills, creative thinking, problem solving, team building and collaboration skills.
In 2014/2015, the winning project was a fitness DVD for Kids. The DVD highlighted the importance of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle for children.
On Thursday 26th February, Fifth Class had a wonderful day filming their DVD ‘Fit Kidz 4 Life,’ as part of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme. Filming took place on the astroturf and it was a busy afternoon of drills and re-takes! The design and production team and the marketing team did an outstanding job of finding and ordering the uniforms for the shoot and designing the banner which can be seen during filming. On the day, the sports co-ordination team did a wonderful job of motivating everybody and keeping everyone focused.
Prior to this, Fifth Class had two wonderful days filming in the classroom and the library, explaining the process of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme and how ‘Fit Kidz 4 Life’ came into existence.
We are all very proud of their wonderful product. Many thanks to Pat Shortt and Richie Clifford for their time and efforts in helping fifth class to put the DVD together.
On 22nd April, Fifth Class attended the Junior Entrepreneur County Showcase Day in the Woodlands Hotel, Adare. This was a wonderful opportunity to network with other schools and see the wonderful projects which had been undertaken throughout Limerick. We also had the chance to chat with various entrepreneurs and gain some wonderful feedback about our DVD Fit Kidz 4 Life. They were very impressed with us! At the end of the day, we were presented with a JEP plaque and flag. This day brought to an end a very rewarding and memorable Junior Entrepreneur experience.
