Imberhorne School played host to some world class guest speakers who delivered daily masterclasses during Global Enterprise Week (13th - 17th November 2017). We kicked off the week with CGI who came in to speak to our GCSE & A Level learners about Cyber Security.  Carl Nightingale who heads up a team shared how his military background coupled with his business acumen and computer programming knowledge now heads up a team of 1700 bright minds globally. He delivered his masterclass about ‘protecting what we value’  and afterwards, our Sixth Form computer coders did not have to tie him down for work experience or internships as he was ready to offer his business cards to anyone who was keen to take up the challenge of applying. He was also keen to sponsor the best and the brightest of our students through university with the offer of a job at the end potentially.

On Wednesday 15th we welcomed a different entrepreneur from a different sector of the economy. Targeting English and Travel & Tourism students, Paul Hogan has built a business that serves B2B customers across the globe as he takes his airports-expo around the world. He talked about  his earlier career in publishing.  Paul explained how he found a niche market combining publishing with events as most printed material is provided free these days as a way of promoting a service or a product. Students across years 10-13 were excited with what the B2B market could offer and Travel & Tourism students were signing up to do internships by the end of the presentation in Europe.

Next up was Paul Glenister Managing Director of Easistore Self Storage who delivered a talk on ‘Branding - Entrepreneurship and Franchising’ . After travelling around the world, Paul spotted a gap in the market and is building his locally renowned expanding brand.  If you build a brand well enough it’s easy to franchise, so that’s why he caught the attention of our BTEC Business Year 10’s who learned how to avoid mistakes in setting up a business.  Useful advice as they start developing their ideas with the support of the Peter Jones Foundation and Tycoon in Schools.

We finished the week with Dentist, Dr Matthew McNulty who delivered his masterclass on ‘Dare to be a dentist and how the job is changing in a way that he would never have imagined when he trained for it’. Matthew obtained his qualifications from Newcastle University  in clinical dentistry in 2011 and has recently passed his exams for membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MFDS). He has recently submitted his dissertation for an MSc in primary dental care and has an interest in restorative dentistry, particularly endodontics. The room was filled with A Level and GCSE Science students who listened intently as Matthew shared his career journey so far.

This was a great celebration of business enterprise which was part of Imberhorne Schools Business and Economics faculties ‘Challenge Week’ and fitted well with the theme of Global Enterprise Week. Amazingly, over 85% of all business is small business in the UK and it is this small business that creates wealth and jobs across the country and contributes the lion's share of £975bn each year to run UK PLC. So we all thought that it was well worth making some noise about at Imberhorne School.