Royal Opera House Dragons Den – Creativity helps develop Entrepreneurs

How and why did a group of pupils from a school in Essex come to be pitching their new brands of smoothies and soups to a panel of experts from international organisations at the world-famous Royal Opera House in Covent Garden?

The Sweyne Park School in Rayleigh, Essex is a specialist science school and Creative Partnerships Change School with 1,300 pupils aged 11-16. Whilst reflecting on the latest Ofsted report, the teachers at Sweyne Park felt that they needed to improve the levels of creative teaching and learning within the Food Technology department. Teaching in this area has changed rapidly over the years with teachers who were once focused on cookery now being faced with adding marketing and enterprise into the mix.

Working with Creative Partnerships, the government’s flagship creative learning programme, Sweyne Park School embarked on a project which would help teachers and pupils alike to connect with the realities of the working world and meet with members of the food industry. Sixteen year 10 pupils were selected to develop a range of smoothies and soups through a process of experimentation and evaluation.

The school united with several businesses; Mintel who specialise in Market Research, RDA Organic who produce healthy smoothies and juices, and New Covent Garden Food Company who create a range of soups amongst other products. Teachers visited the companies to gain inspiration, tips and an overall insight into the realities of food production and representatives from the three companies also held workshops with the pupils as well.

Over a period of six months the pupils formed four teams and set about developing their products through extensive research into nutrition and ingredients. They also worked with Creative Practitioner Keir Cooper, a graphic designer by trade on the packaging and marketing of their products. The students performed a trial run of selling their products at the school sports day, taking on board feedback from their peers.

Following some final refinements, the pupils boarded the train from Rayleigh and arrived at the Royal Opera House (ROH) to present their products before an expert panel including representatives from the three companies and the Senior Head Chef from the ROH. The teams presented Miss Aphrodite – a smoothie with an elegant theme aimed at women; Fruit Shock – a smoothie targeted at teens; Mood Soup – an uplifting pumpkin flavoured soup which comes complete with individual bread rolls; and finally, Veggie Heroes – soup pots shaped as vegetables such as Mushrooms and Brocolli aimed at young children.

Chris Stuart, teacher at Sweyne Park, commented: “I was amazed by the quality of the Dragon's Den pitches and how the pupils responded to the pressure of presenting to the business panellists at the impressive Royal Opera House venue. Oover the period of the project it was fantastic to see how pupils responded to the entrepreneurial challenges by developing their creativity, the skills to succeed in teams and the ability to communicate. Some of the solutions the groups came up with were absolutely inspirational.”

The pupils dressed up to play the part and led a number of presentations to the judges. Commenting on what they had seen the judges said, “Heroes was the perfect product and the marketing was great”, but they did “need to look into the nutritional value as this is really important for young children”. Whereas Fruit Shock had a “nice smell and we thought it was really good that you added lime as an ingredient”. Once the judges had all deliberated over the impressive presentations, the judges favourite was announced as Mood Soup as there really is a “real gap in the market for this product”.

One of the pupils, Sam, enthused: “I was really inspired by the effort and persistence the people on the panel had applied to succeed in their jobs. In preparing for the final event I actually felt an adrenaline rush, afterwards I was so pleased that our hard work had paid off.”

Tom Frankland, the Creative Partnerships Creative Agent who works with the school, said, “This project proved to be a really exciting challenge and it really helped the children to take responsibility for their role in working together in a team. It helped to give them knowledge of what it is like to work in the real world, giving them an awareness of what opportunities are out there and the possible steps they could take to reach their goals. For some of them it was the first time they had been to London.”

He continues, “In terms of the teaching at the school, they have recognised how important creative learning can be and how important it is to integrate into the curriculum. The teachers involved in the project have kept in touch with the three companies and will be able to use these links with other year groups.”