Schoolchildren swap classroom for boardroom in business challenge

Hundreds of North East schoolchildren are set to battle it out in the boardroom to present their business ideas.

Year Five children from 16 schools across the region are taking part in the Boardroom Charity Challenge, launched by Newcastle Building Society, to concoct business ideas to benefit their local community while also making a profit.

Eight of the participating schools will be chosen by an initial judging panel to go forward to the competition’s final stages, where they will present their ideas to a panel of business figures in the boardroom at the Society’s Principal Office in Newcastle .

The overall Challenge winner will receive a £500 donation towards putting their business ideas into practice, with all the other participants receiving runner up awards.

The Boardroom Challenge is part of a six-week long curriculum based learning package that teaches core numeracy and literacy skills.

The Newcastle Building Society scheme is in its second year and is part of an ongoing financial education programme, which started in 2011, developed by the Newcastle to help children learn more about managing money tp become more financially independent.

It forms part of as part of a wider NBS ‘Cornerstone of the Community’ campaign through which individual branches provide support to organisations and good causes in their local areas.

The schools are located throughout the region, from Morpeth and Cramlington in the north down to Middlesbrough and Stokesley in the south.

A team from Roseberry Primary School in Great Ayton on Teesside won last year’s Challenge with their ideas for raising money for the Cleveland Search & Rescue Service.

Jim Willens, chief executive at Newcastle Building Society, who will be part of the boardroom judging panel, says: “Our first Boardroom Charity Challenge was hugely successful, with hundreds of children both enjoying the event in itself and receiving extremely valuable information that will help them begin to prepare for looking after their own finances, and there was a lot of interest in taking part this year from both last year’s competitors and others that heard about what we were doing.

“Focussing the children’s ideas on providing benefits to their local community ties in closely with our ethos as a mutual organisation, and will demonstrate that businesses can operate in a way which benefits society as well as makes a profit.

“The financial education work we’ve undertaken over recent years follows on from our aim to provide practical support to people within the communities in which we work, and in today’s climate, helping young people to start to learn how best to save and look after their money has probably never been so important.”

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