ENTERPRISING students from Beath High School have taken a leaf out of survival expert, Bear Grylls’ book, and designed their own lanyards and bracelets to sell to their schoolmates.

The group of five students are part of the Enterprise Group at Beath High, aimed at helping the youngsters develop essential life skills. The fourth years work together with Charlotte Cross, a teacher for learning and behavioural development, in order to improve their confidence and pick up key skills. Now, their creative minds have come up with a business plan to make and sell their own products in a bid to prove themselves as budding entrepreneurs.

Charlotte, who works closely with the students, explained how the project came about. “It’s a life skills class, with lessons on numeracy and literacy and so on, and one of the topics is doing an enterprise,” she said.

“The pupils did job applications and interviews and then research and pick their own products to sell. They decided to do Bear Grylls-like lanyards and bracelets, survivalist fashion accessories with a practical use, made from parachute cord in different colours. Their job is to market it and sell it to the school.” However, the students aren’t completely overcome with ideas of capitalism, as Charlotte revealed, they took it upon themselves to pledge some of the money they make to a good cause close to the school. “They are going to donate a percentage of the profits to the school’s Malawi fund, as Beath High has a partner school in Malawi,” she said.

“The kids decided on this themselves - they were told they could use the profits for a trip for themselves but they wanted to donate 10% to the fund.” According to Charlotte, the students have put in a lot of work into their ideas, and she thinks that the project has really help them flourish. “This has been really good for the pupils and they’ve totally risen to the challenge and it has made them think about sales,” she said. “It has opened up their thinking to the wider possibilities that they can achieve, with future jobs and life skills.

“We’ve had really positive feedback. A business consultant came in and their response was really good.

“The pupils are bolstered when people come in from the outside and it gives them a real boost. They’ve been using a lot of initiative to come up with really creative ideas.

“They’ve been running the project practically by themselves - they’ve done all the research and decided on the products.

“It’s been very rewarding to see them raising their expectations of their life and their future, and they have the confidence to get there.” With sales for the bracelets, lanyards and key fobs expected to get underway now that the school is back after the holidays, Charlotte thinks there’s only one thing left for the students to achieve. “We want to contact Bear Grylls and see if he might visit,” she admitted. “That would be a dream!”