Enterprise Troopers

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Big Ideas Wales is the campaign to encourage young people, entrepreneurs and partners such as Schools, Colleges, Universities, youth and community groups to get involved to increase awareness, understanding and aspirations for entrepreneurship. To develop confident young people with entrepreneurial skills and attitudes, nurture young people’s enthusiasm for starting a business and help them realise their ambitions.
The services can enhance a wide range entrepreneurship activity taking place with partner organizations within curriculum areas and help young people access ongoing business start up support. 

They are local entrepreneurs who have set up and run their own businesses in Wales. Our network of Role Models can best convey the exhilaration of running a business; help understand the decisions they make and the risks they take. Role Model stories feature throughout the Big Ideas Wales campaign and are crucial in the delivery of all of the projects services. To find out about Role Models in your area please contact your local executive.

The competition is part of the Welsh Government’s Youth Entrepreneurship Services (YES) to support young people in Wales from the age of 5-25 to increase their awareness of entrepreneurship, find their inspiration, explore ideas and ultimately launch their own business. The Prospects Partnership, made up of Prospects and Cazbah Ltd. are appointed by the Welsh Government to deliver Youth Entrepreneurship Service for Schools, which includes the Enterprise Troopers national competition, to nurture the spirit of entrepreneurship among primary school children in Wales.

The Enterprise Troopers are based on the ACRO model of entrepreneurship, the four key characteristics of entrepreneurial behaviour:

Attitude
Creativity
Relationships
Organisation

No the competition is free to enter.

To involve as many children as possible in entrepreneurial activity, the competition will be open to pupils in two age bands; Reception, and Years 1 to 2 i.e. 4 to 7 year olds (Foundation Phase), Years 3 – 6 i.e. 8 – 11 year olds (Key Stage 2).

This also prevents reception and year 1 and 2 pupils being judged against older pupils in year 3-6.

Each school will be able to enter one team at Foundation Phase and one team at Key Stage 2 for the regional stage of the competition.

Not at all – that is entirely up to you.

At school level, you can involve as many pupils as you want. However, for schools that are selected to compete at regional and national level, the number of team members must be limited to a maximum of 4, plus 2 chaperones.

For detailed information have a look at the competition timetable.

The competition is structured to provide you with flexibility in how to run your school’s activity. The in-school element of the competition can be run with individual classes, across a whole year group, with small groups of pupils, as a suspended timetable day, embedded in lessons or a combination of these approaches – it’s up to you.

The competition does not have a specific theme. We think that this would limit opportunities for learning. You have complete flexibility to plan, carry out and showcase your own exciting entrepreneurial activity.

The competition does, however, require pupils to take an enquiring, problem solving approach to entrepreneurial learning, having first hand, ‘real life’ enterprise experiences requiring practical trading e.g. to design, produce and sell a product or service.

Many primary schools already engage successfully with their local business community when undertaking their enterprise activities. Support for your enterprise competition activities may be provided by a wide range of partners which include Local businesses; their involvement is crucial in bringing the world of work to life and helping children to see how their enterprise activities in school are relevant to the workplace.

Big Ideas Wales role models
School alumni
Community organisations
Governors
Parents/carers
FE college

The closing date for submitting your school’s entry is 13 May 2019. You can enter any project you have put into practice from 1 January 2018 and there is no restriction on when you carry out your enterprise activity within this time period or how long it lasts.

The timescale will allow you to incorporate the competition into your longer term curriculum planning and give you time to engage with your local business community and to link with other events. For example, each November, Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), the world’s largest campaign to promote entrepreneurship, is celebrated all over Wales.

Also, if your school has more than one class/group/team which you want to take part in the competition, this will give you time to run an in-school competition to decide which team(s) will represent the school at the regional heats.

We think children will develop the ACRO skills best by actually setting up a business, so we expect entries to show evidence of carrying out an enterprise activity, not to just present an idea and plan.

For detailed information have a look at the competition timetable.

To make entry as easy as possible for all schools we have developed a short entry form for you to complete online.

The form is divided in to sections to allow you to demonstrate how starting your business developed the ACRO skills in your pupils. How they showed a positive attitude to respond to challenges, what creative things they did, what relationships were important and how they organised their business. You can also include up to 4 photographs/images to promote your entry, which can include posters or leaflets produced by the children.

You can refer to the competition handbook and judging criteria to see what the judges will look for in your entry.

For the Foundation Phase the competition is in two stages; an in-school competition (if the school chooses) followed by the Regional Final.

For Key Stage 2 pupils the competition will take place in three stages; an in-school competition (if the school chooses) followed by a Regional Final, and culminating with a National final in Cardiff.

The Regional Finals will be held between 10 and 21 June 2019. The venues have still to be finalised but we will try to make sure that you won’t have to travel more than one hour from your school.

You will be notified by the 24 May 2019.

The National Finalists will be announced on the day of each Regional Final.

The National Final will be held in July 2019 in Cardiff. Each of the winning schools in the Key Stage 2 division from the Regional Finals will be invited. An allowance towards overnight accommodation will be provided for each team and a contribution of up to £100 for travel to and from Cardiff  from their school  if their journey is over 50 miles or more than 1 hour each way to Cardiff (distance will be judged from school address to Cardiff).

For the in-school element of the competition, that will be for the school to decide. For the regional and national events, panels of Big Ideas Wales Role Models and educationalists judge.

More information on the judging process will be available very soon.

A range of incentives will be provided, for example:
At school level; certificates for all participating pupils
At regional level; a wall plaque for the winning schools, plus rewards for the participating pupils
At national level; award ceremony and trophy; plus certificates for the participating pupils.
The Regional Finals will also host interactive workshops from Big Ideas Wales Role Models, so that pupils can learn a bit more about business while having some fun. Take a look at the competition Flickr for a sample
https://www.flickr.com/photos/enterprisetroopers/sets/

Travel costs cannot be provided for schools attending the Regional Finals. Travel costs up to £100 will be provided for teams who attend the National Final in Cardiff if their journey is over 50 miles or more than 1 hour each way to Cardiff Bay (distance will be judged from school address to Cardiff Bay).

We appreciate that you will have questions not included on this list. Please send additional questions to: hello@enterprisetroopers.com. We will reply to you personally, and if appropriate add the question and answer to this page for the benefit of all.