Enterprising approach to pre-schoolers

Published on Wednesday 7 March 2007 01:35

YOU may hear the cry "let children be children" but, with spiralling personal debt and a lack of entrepreneurial skills across the board, teaching business basics to infants could be the answer.

The idea that children under five might be capable of thinking in "enterprise" terms is not as crazy as it sounds.

The Government's curriculum framework already calls for three to five-year-olds to learn to make and express choices, plans and decisions as part of their emotional, social and personal development.

Elizabeth Stewart, the head of early years education at St George's School for Girls in Edinburgh, put this plan into action. With the help of Strathclyde University's Brian Twiddle, the developer of the Enterprising Infants scheme, she created an enterprising venture for the preschool children.

"We like to think we are creating enterprising preschoolers," says Stewart. "Children do benefit from their experience in producing, marketing and financing something. When we started the project, we set up a little garden centre, drew up posters, took plant cuttings and then two months later we had a plant sale.

"Last term we had an art exhibition and our little business continues to flourish, with more than 200 in the account."

The preschool's ongoing fundraising activities are now known as Early Years Futures Unlimited, and the balance of their bank account is continuing to grow.

Stewart says she is very aware of children's ability, often underestimated, to hypothesise, question and reflect.

"Children's power of thought never fails to amaze the educators," she says. "Intervention by adults should support or extend the learning experience and increase levels of challenge. The Early Years Futures Unlimited fund has been a really successful development and the children are now coming up with probably too many ideas."

Other preschool ventures have included a fashion show for Africa, which involved the children designing and making their own costumes, while raising money to build part of a school in Uganda.

Stewart says: "We shall continue to make enterprise education part of our curriculum. Creative, literary, numeracy, and computer skills are all facilitated in enterprise education. In fact it helps children in all the key areas of their development and they can work in teams or independently."

She believes enterprise education challenges and encourages learning.

"It raises self-esteem and helps us to help ourselves. It teaches us about citizenship and the value of our parents and the community in everything we do. It allows us the freedom to think about our future and what we should like that to be.The most important lesson of all has been that we recognise that it is every child's right to have a future and we can do something to help."

Learning about enterprise, money management, and preparing young people for the financial problems they will face in life is part of the primary and secondary education curriculum in Scottish schools. Using real-life scenarios with older children, such as choosing a mobile phone, buying a car or getting to grips with that first payslip is part of a financial education programme that the Royal Bank of Scotland introduced in 2004.

Despite criticism of bringing brand names into schools and the unlimited access it gives banks to children, professionals working with families crippled with debt say any enterprise or financial education can only help what is becoming Scotland's hidden shame.

Sharon Bamford, the chief executive of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, says when children are developing enterprise skills, they are simultaneously developing a whole range of other skills, such as creative thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills, as well as their English and Maths. These skills can also help foster better understanding of financial education in later life.

"The confidence these experiences give a child cannot be underestimated," she says. "If Scotland is to become a truly entrepreneurial nation then this can only be a good thing. We have great ideas, we have educated and talented young people, we have an entrepreneurial support infrastructure that is the envy of the world, but we don't yet have the culture."

The Scottish Institute for Enterprise is a collaboration between all Scottish universities. The aim of the institute is to provide training and support in entrepreneurship and business skills for all students.

Bamford believes preschool enterprise activity from an early age makes sense and lays the groundwork for her work with students.

She says: "In these activities it is natural to buy and sell and as a consequence think about the cornerstone of entrepreneurial activity, the customer."

Dr Judith McClure, the headmistress at St George's, says enterprise activities should be normal life for preschool children: "We want all our children and young people in Scotland to be confident and successful learners and to be ready to take their part in the global economy of the 21st century.

"Engaging them in this kind of enterprising, international activities from the very first stages of their education is vital. It paves the way for the enterprise education with an international dimension throughout school life, including experience of the work place and the Skills for Work courses development by the SQA."

Young Enterprise Scotland is one of Scotland's leading providers of enterprise education. It provides a wide range of programmes for young people aged five to 25 and hopes to give them the opportunity to develop their full potential, raise their confidence, self esteem and test their ideas.

"Our primary suite of programmes is comprehensive, and matches closely with the curriculum, and this school year we have delivered to 11,760 children, delivering 122,400 hours of contact time," says Stuart Miller, its chief executive. "If we are to create a thriving community we must invest in our young people. Delivering Enterprise Education to children in their formative years is vitally important. And delivering appropriate enterprise training preparing people to become active vibrant citizens can only be a good thing."