‘Developing an Entrepreneurial Spirit’
Entrepreneurial Spirit is Strong at the LBPSB
by Simone Viger
‘Don’t ask a student what they want to be when they grow up, ask them what problem they would like to solve’ Quote by Jaime Casap, Google Educator
SPOTLIGHT on: Beaconsfield High School Entrepreneurship Gala
On November 13th, 2024 – Beaconsfield High School hosted their annual gala where the students presented entrepreneurship project ideas to a panel of judges to get their valuable feedback. This annual event has been organized for almost 17 years, thanks to the support and encouragement of Nancy Battet and Lily Sacco (LBPSB Educational Services).
At this Gala, 16 groups of students aged 12-to-13 years old presented to an auditorium of 200 fellow students and a panel of guest judges. According to one of the organizing teachers, “it is a little bit of a Dragon’s Den sort of thing where this year we had a panel of judges from the community and the school board.” The judges this year were Amelia Cretan, Phyllis Profumo and Frank Caracciolo from Educational Services and Sam Asmar and Brian Smith from the broader school community.
Congratulations to the winners and also to everyone who presented!
Developing an Entrepreneurship Project
Rosemary Hill is a grade 7 English Language Arts (ELA) teacher at BHS who works with grade 7 ELA teachers Lisa Crowhurst and Emily Benham (along with a team of supportive BHS teachers) and students each year to help students develop entrepreneurship projects. This entrepreneurial spirit has become embedded in the ELA cur riculum for grade 7 students.
Entrepreneurship, or developing an entrepreneurial spirit in our students, empowers students to identify a problem within their school, community or globally and take steps to address and solve these issues. Entrepreneurial projects place students at the heart of the action and allow them to participate actively in the decision-making and tasks involved in every stage of the project.
“It’s important to understand the process that we go through to get to the Gala, because the goal is one step in the process of our entrepreneurial projects that we do with our great students.”
In their first few months of school, students in nine different English classes developed a presentation. To develop the idea, many of the BHS teachers use the Incubator resource, thanks to their partnership with Sam Asmar from Carrefour Jeunesse-emploi de l’Ouest-de-L’Île and Lachine.
Incubator is an online tool, with simple workshops, printable worksheets and optional entertaining short videos that guide students to create and plan projects they can do in their community or school. The website is here: https://321incubator.com/en/about-us/
According to Rosemary Hill, a Grade 7 Teacher, the tools found on the Incubator website helped students to brainstorm ideas, pitch their ideas to their classmates, and then work on their skills and presentation. So initially, the students came up with the idea for the project. To prepare for the presentations, students benefited from advice from Nat Mailhot , a communication coach that helps students in their speaking opportunities.
These project presentations concerned the development of a product, the establishment of a service or the organization of an event with the following goals:
● To find a solution to a problem
● To improve a situation
● To fulfill a request from the community
● To meet a need
Next steps for the students are taking initiative on the development of their projects. Their teachers and project mentors will guide the students in the design, planning and fruition of the project. According to Ms . Rosemary Hill, “the project’s next phase involves students executing their plan to make their project a reality. It is always exciting to see students channel their creativity and effort into bringing their project ideas to life.”
Congratulations again to all the students and staff involved in this tradition!
Entrepreneurship Week & Grants
All these exciting initiatives with students at the center of the action are just in time for Entrepreneurship Week, from November 11th to 15th this year. In Quebec, this week highlights the first phase of entrepreneurship – “Awareness Raising” or “Sensibilization”, with the intention to inspire students to realize a project during this upcoming school year.
Every year, the Ministry of Education (MEES), in partnership with the OSEntreprendre (www.osentreprendre.quebec) offers students and staff in our schools the opportunity to enter their projects in the OSEntreprendre challenge. Funding is also available for projects that meet eligibility requirements, with up to $1,000 per project being awarded this year. These initiatives focus not on starting a business, but on social entrepreneurship where students learn to develop real-world solutions to problems they identify.
The Lester B. Pearson school board submits between 500 – 700 entrepreneurship projects per year from our schools. This is the most projects submitted by any school board in the province of Quebec. Many of our projects have won prizes over the years at the Regional as well as National levels.
Calls for project submissions on the OSEntreprendre website will be open in the coming weeks, much earlier this year. Consultants at Educational Services are pleased to help with your projects and project ideas. Kindly contact Nancy Battet or Lily Sacco by email at: nbattet@lbpsb.qc.ca | lsacco@lbpsb.qc.ca
Community Corner
At the Entrepreneurship Gala, there were two community partners who offered their feedback as guest panelists. The judges had the opportunity to ask students a question and maybe give some feedback – and judges selected their top three projects based on the presentation and the idea or the need they are addressing.
Below is some information about these awesome guest judges.
Brian Smith
Brian Smith is an experienced and knowledgeable professional who has been working in financial literacy, business and sociology for over 20 years after playing football at Boston University. He has worked in the not-for-profit sector with groups such as Carrefour-Jeunesse Emploi Côte-des-Neiges, Prosper Canada, and Canadian Foundation for Economic Education. Brian is passionate about supporting the development of financial literacy to people from all walks of life.
“The work is very rewarding because it is something that affects people’s lives, and most of my workshops is basically having ‘money talks’ with people and hearing what they have to say and then providing them some choices that they can make.” -Brian Smith
Brian was invited to judge student projects this year at BHS. He noted that many had a social component to them such as fundraising campaigns for the homeless, renovations at school, a lot of projects for recycling and helping the environment.
With Brian’s experience, he was able to help BHS students “look and see if the projects were also feasible, so a lot of questions that I asked are, ‘how they were going to pay for that,’ or how they would find and get the resources to start up their projects.”
According to Brian, the students were well versed, impressive and prepared. Entrepreneurial initiatives are one of the ways to improve financial literacy skills, “through project-based learning they are actually in it. They know the cost of purchasing material, how much they must sell to make a profit, what they could increase. Maybe they don’t see right away the true value as far as how much money you can make.”
BHS Teachers are hoping to invite Brian back to their classes for workshops on financial planning, budgeting, teamwork and other subjects fostering healthy relationships with money and better financial choices.
Next for Brian? Create a new podcast on social media with youth speaking to a variety of individuals and experts about financial literacy and financial education – and more workshops in schools from elementary to adults, business leaders to seniors.
Sam Asmar
Sam Asmar used to be a high school teacher and now is a project manager with Carrefour Jeunesse-emploi de l’Ouest-de-L’Île and Lachine.
CJE’s mission is to improve the lives of young people from 16 to 35 years old, but also in some cases 11 to 35 years old, depending on the different programs. In all kinds of ways, whether it is employment, entrepreneurship, school perseverance, or volunteering. It is basically a “one-stop-shop” for youth.
Through CJE, Sam helps young people and teachers develop projects in their schools or in the community. These projects can be environmental, social, artistic, whatever. The idea is to get them to create and to make things happen and to learn from the experiences. The Carrefour also offers funding to schools to support the projects they want to implement. This year, he has over 30 projects he is supporting through CJE.
“Lester B. Pearson is a very entrepreneurial school board. There is no lack of inventiveness and interest in that… it’s fun! Every year we have more and more projects we are supporting.”
According to Sam, over the last few years, there has also been more interest in environmental goals, as well as mental health, anxiety, and social help. While there are projects that are more about sales, there is a social goal to help an organization or cause.
Also, one of the benefits of these projects is that everyone can contribute, “everybody has their strength, so you might not be an honor roll student in math, but you really know how to sell a product. You know how to talk to people and get them interested and that is very valuable. So, everyone gets to use their own skills.” But he notes, you need the work ethic because “you can never get away from the fact that it requires work.” Even if you have a good idea or the desire to be an entrepreneur, “hopefully you are driven enough by the passion to do it that you can make this stuff happen, not just by the money.”
According to Sam, being a judge at BHS last week was fun to see the ideas students came up with, the effort and the knowledge that goes into their presentations. “It’s very exciting, all secondary one, they are so young and getting into it. I think starting off high school with an experience like that is really unique and powerful.”
Sam’s advice to students stepping into the next phase of entrepreneurship, especially if they face obstacles and challenges:
“You have your idea. But just know your idea is going to change. And that is OK. Your idea is going to change, and you just have to keep moving forward.”
Next for Sam? A live Incubator workshop at Horizon High School, to help the students to think about their ideas based on their interest and skills. CJE also offers workshops for youth on Financial Literacy, from budgeting to savings to credit to debt. So, teachers can request specific workshops.
