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James Foottit from Higgidy www.higgidy.co.uk
James kick-started the conference, talking about the business that he and his wife created in 2004 after spotting a gap in the food market. Like Kate’s Cakes and Innocent Smoothies, Higgidy starting selling to friends and family, but now has annual sales exceeding £4million. Higgidy sets itself high standards: ingredients come from Britain, meat is Freedom Food and all of the pies are handmade. James described his unconventional career path and the journey to running his own company in Shoreham, inspiring our students with his ‘can do’ attitude and his philosophy of taking nothing (including commercial success) for granted.
James invited our students to suggest ideas for a new brand and logo design for a new branch of the company. The competition entries are coming in. Our thanks to Gareth Sear, from the West Sussex Enterprise Gateway, for generously sponsoring £150 worth of prizes for the day, including a £50 iTunes voucher for the winning design.
The workshops
The workshops were led by our teachers, kindly supported by volunteer business guests. The focus was on ‘how to write a good application’, whether for work or university. Our business guests actively shared their experiences and helped to advise our students on what makes a good or bad application, reinforcing the messages that the students had heard in their lessons. With thanks to Jacqui Scerri from the West Sussex Education Business Partnership for running a training session for our teachers and for supplying the resources to host the application workshops.
Speed networking
Based on the highly successful Arun Business Partnership networking meetings, and hosted by Miriam Nicholls, our students were joined by additional business guests from a wide variety of professions and sectors. We just about managed to squeeze the nearly 250 ‘networkers’ into the school hall for a lively hour of fast talking and ideas sharing.
Ollie Heath from Drum Up Education www.drumupeducation.com
Ollie is an inspiring music teacher who uses his unique skills in drumming, body percussion, singing and drama to help young people learn quickly, gain confidence, improve results and succeed. Ollie has been running Drum Up Education for ten years, working with schools and organisations across the UK. He had everyone up on their feet, stamping and clapping in a fantastic display of rhythm and team work.
It couldn’t have happened without……
Our fabulous guest speakers and all of our business guests who kindly gave up their time to work with us. Thank you to: Miriam Nicholls from Arun District Council for hosting the speed networking; Sara Hopkins, Community Liaison Manger at The Littlehampton Academy, for devising and organising the conference; Jacqui Scerri, Education Business Partnership Co-ordinator, for running workshop training sessions and for supporting us on the day; and all our staff and students for making it such a success!
