We have strong relationships with businesses via our in-house Work Experience programme - so we tap into that network extensively as needed.

We have a Community Co-ordinator who can broker relationships with businesses at the request of staff. We also have links to local employers (e.g. Liverpool Victoria) who deliver sessions for our students in a range of business scenarios at Key Stages 4 and 5 (students aged 14-16 and 16-19).

The Deputy Headteacher runs Entrepreneurship Summer Schools and Saturday Schools in conjunction with NTYE (a charity of whom she is director/trustee). Outside of this, most activity is delivered in-house by our own staff - this is due to the expertise they have and the sometimes high cost of external providers (and in some cases the poor quality of the service).

Entrepreneurial Learning is introduced to the students in a variety of ways :

Assemblies at key times in the year, especially before and during Enterprise Week;

Deep Learning Days preparation time;

Within normal lesson time; Extra-curricular time.

Our key external partners include:

• PATA (Princes Avenue Traders Association) - Paula from Polly Anna – business partner for Make £5 Blossom project 2010 - Thoresby pupils regularly take part in Vista Festival activities e.g. selling jewellery; school choir
• Friends of Thoresby - parents group - fundraising - coffee mornings, Christmas and Summer Fair, Kaleidoscope
• Parents (examples of professions) - voluntary activities, talking to children about their job + 'Grow it' partnership
• Open Futures Specialists: John Hickling RHS (Grow it); Denise Evans (Film it); Steve Williams (Ask it); Ann (Cook it) - working with pupils and staff to develop skills for the future e.g. planting crops; creating animations and ICT presentations; developing philosophical enquiry; cooking.
• Humber Business Partnership - Enterprise workshops – Giant Tetrahedron; Where’s My Hat?; Eurogateau
• Pooh Bear Readers - adult volunteers working with individual pupils to develop reading skills
• Global Schools Partnership - Twinned schools in Sierra Leone and the Amazon; cultural and educational exchange between school staff at Thoresby and in Sierra Leone – Thoresby Y5 teacher currently in Sierra Leone on exchange visit
• NHS dental care - toothbrush initiative FS-Key Stage 2 (pupils aged 7-11)
• Hymers volunteers – pupils from a local secondary school hear readers
• Croda- Visit by Year 5 pupils (aged 9-10)

Learning is introduced through discussion and exemplification of the Big 13 Skills. Pupils are familiar with these through class displays and the award of badges depicting the Enterprise 6 in Early Years classes (pupils aged 3-5).

Enterprise education is that which:

• assists young people to become more enterprising in their approach to life, learning and work;
• provides a focus on the development of entrepreneurship;
• encompasses core skills, aspects of personal and social development, employability skills, career education and work related learning;
• encourages the development of skills for the future (the ‘Big 13’).

The School Development Plan includes the following references to Entrepreneurial Learning:

1. We run enterprise companies with senior students and mini enterprises with the rest of the school.
2. The school has a dedicated building for enterprise activities including a small cafe and shop which is open to the general public.

Our special school celebrates and disseminates good practice and achievements in entrepreneurship programmes in the following ways:

• At the end of each school year, our Year 11 students hold an Annual General Meeting for shareholders, parents and other interested people. They make a full presentation on their roles and responsibilties within their company.
• As part of enterprise we work with Local Authorities on activities relating to community work. We also hold a village market once a month where the children set up stalls and sell their wares.
• A newsletter is produced once every term with details of all the enterpreneurial learning events and activities in which the students have been involved.