Budding entrepreneurs enter Dragons Den as part of Newmarket Beacon Project

The end of the summer term brings with it practical assessments for Year 10 GCSE Business Studies pupils at the Newmarket Academy. This year, staff from Godolphin, Racing to School, Newmarket Racecourse and Racing Together joined teachers from the Academy to form a Dragons Den-style panel to help assess their work.

This latest innovation within the year-long Godolphin-sponsored Beacon Project tasked students with developing their own hat brand – from market research to product launch, and then pitch their ideas to the panel. The work included an appreciation of costs, profit margins, marketing materials and even the creation of mock-ups.

Despite some understandable nerves at pitching in-front of a panel of ‘Dragons’, the standard was incredibly high throughout and a lot of hard work had clearly gone into some really in-depth presentations.

Events like this help to highlight the diversity of opportunity offered by the Beacon Project and the co-operation between the partners, which is growing ever stronger and benefiting the town’s young people far beyond racing.

Reflecting on the day, Jockey Club Regional Marketing Executive Christopher Burton said:

“I was delighted to play a part in what was an important assessment for the Year 10 students.

“It’s such a great opportunity to see what they have learnt about the importance of Marketing and the application to a real-life product and, even more so, to be able to present that in such a great manner.

“The best moment of the day was asking one of the students if they had enjoyed the project, to which their response was, ‘Yes it has been a great way to learn and I’ve decided to pursue a career in marketing’ – a great success all round.”

Danielle Dawson, Head of Business Studies at the Academy, summed up the event by saying:

“The Beacon Project continues to enhance learning and raise ambition for our students here at the Newmarket Academy. Business students were able to pitch their business proposals, which are an important part of their GCSEs, to a panel of racing industry people, including our partners Godolphin, Racing to School, The Jockey Club and Newmarket Racecourse.

“We are grateful for the continued support of the stakeholders within the project and look forward to doing even more creative work next year.”

Find out more about the Newmarket Academy Godolphin Beacon Project here: http://www.racingtoschool.co.uk/godolphin-beacon/