Last week at Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing) was Enterprise Week! From 6-10 May, lessons were turned toward the theme of business operations, and all that entails. We spoke to James Sweeney, Vice-Principal and Head of Primary following Enterprise Week to find out why and how the school celebrated.

Please introduce Enterprise Week.Enterprise Week is a week-long celebration and exploration of the world of business. We endeavoured to incorporate business relevant lessons into every subject during the week. Many schools in Beijing take part in Enterprise Week, but at YCIS Beijing, we don’t just teach children about business during this week but challenge them with putting their business learning into practice.

How did we celebrate Enterprise Week this year?This year we charged all primary schools students with creating real small businesses and had the students launch their businesses at our annual school fair, Global Community Day (GCD). At GCD students from each year had to set up market stalls and compete to see whose business could raise the most money for our school’s charity, Seeds of Hope.

We assigned students different products to develop a business around, based on their Year level, to guide their work during the week.

Year 1 – Slime and Jewellery Year 2 – Terrariums with Chrysalises Year 3 – Games Arcade Year 4 – Traditional Chinese GamesYear 5 – Nice Cream (vegan ice cream)

How did students prepare?There was no advanced preparation for the week by students, but all lessons during Enterprise Week focused on teaching elements of business to get students ready for their business launches at GCD. For example, English lessons taught marketing; Maths lessons taught about profit and loss (and for our Year 1 students, capacity which helped them make their slime); Social Studies lessons looked at charity fundraising and examined different business models (profit vs non-profit, fair trade, etc.). We even managed to connect business lessons to our Science classes for year 2, where they learned about butterflies, moths and crystallises as they built their terrariums for the upcoming GCD market.

Equipped with the knowledge from their business-oriented lessons, we had the students create their products and or packaging, develop their branding, create posters, coupons and signage to market their products, and plan-out their market stalls for GCD.

Why do we celebrate Enterprise Week?At our school, we try to connect all of our lessons to real life and provide real opportunities for our students to demonstrate their learning in the real world. Enterprise Week offers a particularly good opportunity for us to do just that. It only makes sense that we embrace these types of events which are so naturally aligned to our school ethos.

Were there any highlights of the week’s activities?Seeing all of their little market stalls pop up at GCD was the highlight of our celebrations for me. It was incredibly exciting to explore how they (with the help of faculty members) had decided to run their small enterprises and see, even some of our less outgoing students do their best to promote and sell their goods on the day. They all took the responsibility of raising money for charity seriously, and this was great, to see they not only learned about business but character from our Enterprise Week.

Any final or closing remarks about Enterprise Week and how it connects to our overarching approach to learning?We aim to make school as real as possible every day at YCIS Beijing. Enterprise Week was a great example of how we do just that!