A County Clare national school has smashed the sales target for their product in Junior Entrepreneur Programme.
9,000 children have launched start-up businesses while still in primary school. The pupils from almost 300 schools island-wide taking part in the 12th year of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme (JEP) experienced what it’s really like to be a start-up entrepreneur, doing market research and agonising over their final business plan before investing their own cash and putting their business in motion. The pupils combined their innate creativity with the skills they developed on the programme to create original products and launch businesses ranging from board games to storybooks to high-end craft and educational products.
Pupils from 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th classes in Burrane National School surpassed their sales targets for their classroom business, Glo Bottles. Glo Bottles are environmentally friendly, bespoke, light-up, decorative glass bottles. Each bottle was hand-painted by pupils, with a selection of designs to choose from and a personalisation available on request, their sales exceeded their target by a whopping 62%. With their profits of €522.45 and the support of their teacher, Niamh Kelly, they arranged an ice cream van and treated the entire school, in addition to purchasing new sports and playground equipment!
Managing Director Marie Lynch commented, “Participation by schools has returned to close to pre-pandemic levels, and JEP has become a rite of passage for children in many primary schools before they move on to secondary school. Teachers indicate a huge increase in confidence and life skills as well as a strong reinforcement of the primary school curriculum in Maths, English, Art and SPHE,” she added.
Approximately 90,000 pupils have participated in JEP since its inception in 2010. In an exciting development for the programme, Enterprise Ireland has supported JEP in 2021 and 2022 under its Primary Schools Entrepreneurship Initiative, underlining the vital role of entrepreneurship in shaping Ireland’s future.
Among the other Clare schools that participated were:
Caherea National School, Bridgetown National School and Scoil Náisiúnta Realt Na Mara, Kilkee.