What a fantastic term it’s been! Since the start of September the Accelerate Programme has been in full swing, delivering a series of amazing workshops and inspiring sessions to over 260 young people in 6 different schools across Portsmouth and the surrounding areas.
This unique and exciting new programme was designed in partnership between Unloc and The City of Portsmouth College to explore young people’s aspirations, develop their employability and enterprise skills, and explore college life through a series of fun, interactive workshops!
Each workshop focused on one of the E6 principles, an initiative set up by the college to offer enrichment opportunities for students to prepare for the working world.
The students have worked so hard and really engaged with the programme this time, so what better way to end the current round of the Accelerate programme than with a graduation event to celebrate all their efforts! on Thursday 8th December at City Of Portsmouth College, Highbury Campus.
Students who completed the programme, along with their parents and guardians, braved the freezing conditions to join us and The City Of Portsmouth College at the College’s Highbury Campus on the 8th December to celebrate their hard work and be awarded their certificates.
The Unloc team were honoured to be joined by David Byford: Director for Business Engagement, Apprenticeships and Partnerships, Dan Franklin: Manager of School liaison and Councillor Suzy Horton, Portsmouth City Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families.
Suzy delivered an inspiring speech to the pupils regarding the possibilities she seized throughout her education and career to get to her position within the local government administration.
After the certificate ceremony, the pupils were faced with one final Accelerate challenge provided by Uniformed Protective Services which involved making a chair from only balloons and sticky tape!
All the guests then enjoyed a fun evening of food, donuts, pic ’n’ mix candies, prizes and a photo-booth (which of course our wonderful Unloc facilitators needed to sample!).
It was an electric evening and the perfect way to end what has been such a brilliant new programme to add to the Unloc portfolio. Working closely with the college to develop such a bespoke programme for the students has been so fulfilling as we’ve watched them grow and develop, and we look forward to bringing Accelerate to more students in the new year.
As always we like to collect feedback from the young people we work with, so here are just a few of the comments that we collected on the night!
“I really enjoyed the Accelerate programme as I learnt new skills like debating. I really struggle with public speaking and this programme has really helped.”
Accelerate Programme Graduate
“Doing this course has taught me that there are so many options and skills out in the world that we don’t know until we actually try to achieve them.”
Accelerate Programme Graduate
“Just a quick note to thank you for running the Accelerate programme and graduation. [My young person] really enjoyed both parts of the programme, and I was very impressed with the graduation ceremony. Thank you for all you do for our young people.”
Graduation attendee
We’ll be begining a new round of the Accelerate programme in 2023, so keep an eye on our News page right here on the Unloc website, as well as on our social media channels to keep up to date!
You can also subscribe to our free Unloc Digital Update by clicking here!
As a new term begins there’s never been a better time to encourage the young people at your school or college to be their own boss one day, and empower them to become young entrepreneurs.
As the world, and technology changes, the job market will rapidly alter within the next decade. Providing young people with the confidence, ideas and passion to think for themselves and shape their own future is the best gift we can give them.
Our Enterprise Short Course is a practical, creative and structured programme that develops the entrepreneurial mindset and skills of young people.
Our programme is built by former young entrepreneurs and experts, recognising the important lessons and journey they made, and is targeted towards different age groups and level levels.
Available in a variety of formats including 12 week courses or 2-4 day bootcamps depending on your requirements, young people on the programme will explore the key skills and knowledge associated with starting a business, with learning geared towards creating their very own businesses, projects or charity concepts.
They’ll use their creativity and logical thinking to come up with an idea for their own business, then think through how that would logistically work, how it would run, who their customers would be, how they would market it, and how they would make a profit.
By the end of the inspiring programme our ‘apprentice’ participants will have:
In order to graduate the programme and receive Unloc’s employer-backed completion certificate, each young person will present their concepts to a panel of school/college and Unloc facilitators.
These will include:
Whether your students need to develop their confidence and employability, or they’ve proactively decided that self-employment is the route for them, the Unloc Enterprise Short Course will provide an inspiring and insightful personal development journey for all.
Could your students or young people be empowered by our Enterprise Short Course?
Get in touch by giving us a call for an informal chat on 02394 008 180.
Or click the ‘Get in touch’ button above. You can also fill out our simple to use webform by clicking here and we’ll come back to you.
There’s no commitment and we’re always happy to talk and see how we can best meet your needs.
Recently we had the opportunity to work with Portsmouth Grammar School to deliver one of our Unloc Enterprise Days with their Year 7 pupils. Our Enterprise Day events typically involve organising large groups of students to partake in an ‘enterprise challenge’ in small teams. These challenges involve young students thinking of ways to start their own enterprise.
We never fail to be amazed at the ingenuity and creativity young people have on these programmes. With fantastic ideas ranging from setting up a chocolate business, to designing a custom shoe company making bespoke footwear!
The students complete the challenge by creating a visual business plan explaining how their business will be viable. They have to examine key aspects of how their company would function, such as branding, marketing, costs and revenues.
This is typically done in groups of 5-7, with key roles assigned to each member of the team. It’s fantastic to watch as we witness the young people take on a challenge they’ve never dealt with before, then embrace that role as they begin to understand how it works in the context of a business setting.
It really does open the eyes and minds of young people who may never have heard of/or experienced that kind of role or job before. The day culminates with the students pitching their business idea to a panel of judges, with the winning team receiving lovely Unloc prizes!
The goal of our Unloc Enterprise Days are to inspire young people to fulfil their potential, expanding their mindsets whilst improving their soft skills such as public speaking, creativity, leadership and teamwork. Not only is it a day of new ideas and challenges, but of much fun, laughter and excitement!
The Enterprise Challenge that the Portsmouth Grammar School students were set was to start their very own custom sock company. From the outset, the students, all from Year 7, were incredibly engaged.
We first watched a short clip of young entrepreneur Brennan Agranoff, the 17 year old who started his own 7 figure custom sock business. Brennan started manufacturing socks when he was just 13 years old, starting his own company called HoopSwagg. After his business really took off Brennan set up HoopSwagg Causes, a charity program to help people in need. Within two years of starting HoopSwagg was a major competitor in the industry, and he now owns a second business also called PetParty.
It was really incredible to see the Year 7 students get so inspired by his success. Often young people are taught about or made aware of these fantastic success stories, and it is examples like these that can have a lasting impact on such talented young people.
The students (in groups of 6) then had the challenge of sorting themselves into team roles, ranging from the CEO, CFO, CMO and so forth. They then had to come up with a brand name, logo design and pattern designs for their socks. Our Unloc staff were absolutely blown away with the depth of creativity and imagination of the students. From thermal socks , to sustainable eco-friendly socks , the students had an array of original creative concepts.
Moving on, the challenge progressed with the pupils being required to create a business plan. Here, they managed to impress us even more with the quality of their business propositions, ranging from subscription models as a means to create revenue, sponsorships to generate investment, social media influencer campaigns and organic outreach to acquire customers.
It was clear that the room was filled with gifted students who had a precocious talent for business coupled with a genuine work ethic.
Finally, the day ended with the students pitching their sock ideas to our judges and their peers. Just when you thought energy levels would drop off – the students truly shone, with copious amounts of energetic, confident, clear and concise pitches by the groups as they unleashed their ideas to the room.
Moments like these are what we at Unloc dream of. We feel so honoured to know we have opened their eyes and minds to the possibilities ahead of them, and to play a part in inspiring society’s future young leaders to make an impact in the world.
Here are some comments from the Year 7 pupils on the day:
“I really enjoyed this lesson today! I have learned so many new things and features for what I could use in my interior design business which I am planning to do. Once again, thank you for coming over and I hope you enjoy your day!”
“We enjoyed it very much and found it inspirational. Thank you for this experience/opportunity.”
“I loved the way we were able to collaborate and work together as a team“
Deputy Head (Innovation) for Portsmouth Grammar School, Luke Rees commented:
“The energy and enthusiasm from our pupils was a true delight to see and the expert coaches from Unloc scaffolded activities and discussions expertly to ensure that all learning opportunities were maximised.”
“This Year 7 day was the start of a leadership journey that these pupils will go on throughout their time at PGS and each session will build on what they have already learned. We are delighted to be working in partnership with Unloc and most importantly our pupils thoroughly enjoyed the day!”
Our Enterprise Day at Portsmouth Grammar School was a fantastic success and enjoyed by both students and our Unloc team immensely. Thank you so much to all the young people who took part, we can’t wait to follow your success!
To learn more about Portsmouth Grammar School click here!
To learn more about HoopSwagg click here!
Help us celebrate the launch of a new rap track and music video created by young people as a united stand against knife crime, drugs, gang culture & youth violence.
The General Election is over, after an intense period, what did we learn from young people in the run-up to the election?
We’re thrilled to reveal that we and Verizon Business won two awards at The Better Society Awards 2024!
Last Thursday industry professionals from across the country gathered at Verizon’s slick London Hub in at MidCity Place, Holborn, for a Changemaker Moments event on Manufacturing.
Help us celebrate the launch of a new rap track and music video created by young people as a united stand against knife crime, drugs, gang culture & youth violence.
The General Election is over, after an intense period, what did we learn from young people in the run-up to the election?
We’re thrilled to reveal that we and Verizon Business won two awards at The Better Society Awards 2024!
Unloc,
Portsmouth Guildhall,
Guildhall Square,
Portsmouth,
PO1 2AB
©2021 Unloc. All Rights Reserved | Policies & Procedures | Terms & Conditions