Gina’s Blog

What does it mean to be an enterprising school?

Enterprise and entrepreneurship is a integral part of the new curriculum and CORE has been commissioned to investigate the effectiveness of the Enterprise Champions Network professional development project, aiming to promote enterprise education in schools. The project seeks to develop an enterprise leadership culture that will help to embed sustainable environments that foster enterprising positive ‘can-do’ attitudes.

For the last three years of my time at Ultralab , I didn’t go into schools very often but since I’ve been back in NZ and working at CORE, current projects have required me to talk to teachers and students. For the last week, I’ve been travelling around Canterbury interviewing teachers and asking them about their experience of the Enterprise champions project. It’s been a privilege. On Tuesday I interviewed three teachers from Ashburton College who inspired me with their passion and dedication to becoming enterprising teachers, who foster enterprising attitudes in their students.

They told me stories of what they have been doing over the last year, including an assembly run by well known taggers, telling the students why not to tag. They have interviewed student migrants and crafted their stories into children’s books to read to local primary and preschools. Another stunning achievement has been the painting of a mural on the wall of Ashburton’s Mitre 10.

Projects like this rely heavily on the goodwill of teachers who are prepared to invest enormous amounts of their time and energy over and above their already challenging workloads. Time and again during the interview at Ashburton College, Matt, Sus and Pip told me about significant obstacles they had been faced with during these projects. Each time, they turned negatives to positives and they exude energy and enthusiasm. I take my hat off to them and their students and the remarkable things they have achieved.

The Enterprise Champions Network (ECN) has been developed by Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC) with funding from the Enterprise Culture and Skills Activities (ECSA) Fund from NZ Trade and Enterprise.