A group of students were invited to attend The National Enterprise Challenge Competition launch event in Covent Garden. Last year Northampton Academy’s Key Stage 4 team ‘Vendinary’ won this competition. The students were very excited and enjoyed a fantastic evening featuring talks from all the challenge supporters and the ambassador of the competition, former ‘Dragon’ Theo Paphitis.
During his speech Mr Paphitis addressed Team Vendinary directly saying “Northampton Academy has pulled at my heart strings and believe me, they are hard to find” and he later thanked them on twitter saying “Great to see and hear from @northacad students too and thanks for my card - much appreciated”
The 2016 challenge saw the team tasked with creating the ultimate school-based business, for which they designed a pop-up stationery shop that would further develop into a vending machine as the business grew.
The prize included the opportunity to go in to business with Theo on this project, a day out with Red Letter Days and a day out at Alton Towers and will meet the designer of their new ride ‘Galactica’.
Runners-up in the competition were our Key Stage 3 team who designed a new outdoor attraction for Kingswood’s outdoor Dearne Valley activity centre in Yorkshire, and our students also won Key Stage 3 Boy of the year (Andrei) and Key Stage 4 Boy of the year (Ramish).
We are very proud of all our students who have embraced this competition and learned so much from it, and we look forward the new challenges that this year’s competition will bring.