Sacred Heart Primary School & Young Enterprise NI: Building Skills, Confidence and Aspirations for the Future
Sacred Heart Primary School is a Catholic maintained school in an urban area with approximately 415 pupils. 37.8% of pupils are entitled to Free School Meals, around 100 pupils (24.1%) have identified Special Educational Needs, 1.4% are newcomers, and the school serves a community experiencing deprivation.
A Long-Standing Partnership
Sacred Heart Primary School has worked with Young Enterprise Northern Ireland since 2012, engaging pupils in approximately four different programmes. This long-standing partnership gives children opportunities to develop financial capability, employability and entrepreneurial skills through practical, age-appropriate learning.
Recent workshops have introduced pupils to real-world topics including importing and exporting, buying and selling, responsible borrowing, businesses and the role they play within communities.
Through programmes such as Our Community and Our City, pupils have worked together to create businesses and communities, solve challenges and make decisions. Activities have helped develop key skills including communication, teamwork, creativity, problem-solving, decision-making and financial awareness.
The interactive approach also encourages pupils of different abilities and strengths to contribute, helping to build confidence and demonstrate that everyone has valuable skills to offer.
From Ideas to Enterprise with Business Beginnings
Sacred Heart Primary School has also embraced Young Enterprise NI's Business Beginnings programme, which gives pupils the opportunity to experience what it is like to set up and run their own business. Pupils work together to develop a business idea, make decisions about their product, consider costs and pricing, and take their product through to sale.
Business Beginnings brings enterprise learning to life. Along the way, pupils take on different roles and responsibilities, learn to manage money and make decisions as a team, while developing their confidence, creativity and understanding of how a business works. The programme helps children recognise their own skills and shows them that enterprise is something they can actively participate in, not simply learn about.
Impact
For Sacred Heart Primary School, Young Enterprise programmes provide an important link between classroom learning and the wider world. From understanding their community and exploring how cities work to creating and running their own business through Business Beginnings, pupils gain practical experiences that make learning relevant and memorable.
The partnership is particularly valuable in helping to raise aspirations, build confidence and broaden pupils' understanding of future opportunities.
“The children thoroughly enjoyed all the activities.”
Sacred Heart Primary School
After more than a decade of partnership, Sacred Heart Primary School and Young Enterprise NI continue to work together to equip young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence to succeed in the future.