Year Seven pupils have recently worked on a leadership module, studying Elizabeth I, while all sixth-form Btec students have an outside business mentor.Head Kevin Hoare points out that many of these are things that other schools are also doing, and “being enterprising is not about being entrepreneurial per se It’s a mindset, a can-do attitude. In that time it has acquired a range of business and charitable partners and embarked on numerous new projects Boys run programmes for pensioners and autistic children Year Seven pupils spend a day at work with their parents. “The important thing is that we move from a deficit model to an enabling one. Instead of believing that young people need an expert to come along and pour enterprise into them, we have to see that it runs in their blood and just needs support and encouragement to come out.”‘Enterprise is a mindset, a can-do attitude’Finchley Catholic High School is a boys’ comprehensive that has been a business and enterprise college for four years.

There is no typical enterprise school.” Regional “hubs and spokes” will, she says, allow schools to learn from each other “There is an enormous amount out there. The problem for schools is navigating their way around it and taking what’s appropriate.”But Steele believes that the most important step still remains a shift in thinking. “We have 200 specialist business and enterprise colleges, and 200 different ways of doing it. Mark Delamere, of the University of Nottingham’s Institute for Enterprise and Innovation, says that the universities’ expertise in this area could be easily drawn on. “Really effective teachers might have it in their DNA, but one of the main challenges will be training teachers and heads.

We have the National College for School Leadership at the end of the lawn and could easily exchange ideas and help with training.”Meanwhile, the Chancellor signalled further steps down the road in this year’s Budget speech with the announcements that a schools’ enterprise network is to be set up and pilot enterprise summer schools are to be launched this summer.Sue Braybrook, head of the vocational strategy programme for the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, says that the new Schools Enterprise Education Network will be vital to keep up the momentum. Rolls-Royce has devised the business simulation game Profitable Pursuit for use by pupils at key stage three and four, and is now training teachers to use it. Nicola Guthrie, the project manager, says: “It was adapted from an internal project for higher level managers and can be used quite flexibly, although, for teachers, it is definitely a different way of teaching. There are more risks, and you have to learn to talk in a business language.”But Young Enterprise’s Sir Michael points out that the “good, bad and ugly” are also circling the pool.

“There are all kinds of freelance consultants and questionable providers out there. At some point we will have to sort out the sheep from the goats. We will have to look at the range of providers and think about getting people accredited, and about possible qualifications.”No one thinks that an exam in enterprise would make much sense, but some type of standardised self-assessment seems likely as the subject matures.And much more teacher development will be needed. It allows all kinds of student, both the academic and the non-academic, to flourish.