FHS wins Muddy Stilettos Schools Empowering Young Entrepreneurs Award

FHS wins Muddy Stilettos Schools Empowering Young Entrepreneurs Award

15 June 2022

It is wonderful to have been recognised by this renowned company which celebrates and supports the best in modern, holistic education, very much aligning with our ethos at FHS Sloane Square. We place great value on creativity, innovation and enterprise, and our belief that academic results come in the slipstream of co-curricular opportunities allows us to delve deeper than visiting speakers and brief encounters with inspirational entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs.

This belief has led to the evolution of a cutting-edge programme, for which we won an Independent School Parent Innovation Award for an Outstanding New Initiative in October 2021. Designed by our Director of Creative Enterprise, Nick Dyson, our key target when developing this programme has been to encourage pupils to develop the skills and confidence required to start a business while also being mindful of the importance of social and environmental responsibility and factoring this in to their business models.

The programme begins with a creative task in Year 7 (this changes annually, with topics to date ranging from acrylic butterflies to quotes created with circus lettering!). Girls’ skills are honed in our legendary TIPS (Thinking Innovatively and Problem Solving) Week, which is a bespoke series of workshops (including Film Making, CSI Lab Investigations, Architecture and Stage Make Up to name only a few) designed especially for Years 7 and 8 which takes place as an alternative to a traditional exam week in the summer term. These skills are put into use as the programme evolves into the Tycoon in Schools (Peter Jones) competition for the Lower School, Design Thinking as part of our Upper School Enrichment Programme and, finally, our Sixth Form Innovation Sprints (a term which involves meeting link entrepreneurs, understanding web design, product design, pitching and investment). Meanwhile, we target local entrepreneurs and invite them into school to discuss their career journey (recent examples include Zena El Farra of Masterpeace and Asher Budwig of Lola’s cupcakes) and seek guidance from Jenny Campbell (former Dragons’ Den panellist).

Zena and Jenny recently partook in a GSA Webinar with Nick Dyson and Headmistress Lucy Elphinstone on Developing a culture of creativity, innovation and enterprise, which can be viewed here.

The impact of our programme has been profound; resulting in a cultural shift at FHS towards a spirit of entrepreneurship and social enterprise which now sits alongside and mutually enhances academic success. This is felt throughout our School community, now including the Junior School where Junior Enterprise Fairs and an abundance of other creative activities develop younger girls’ innate curiosity and imagination and give them the ideal preparation to make the most of the Senior School Creative Enterprise programme and life beyond FHS.

We are so excited to lead the way in this fascinating field and to have now won two such prestigious awards for our unique progamme. There are some very interesting developments in the pipeline as we continue to ride a wave of entrepreneurial optimism and enthusiasm… watch this space!

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