OPEN MORNING

The Senior and Junior School will be holding an Open Morning on Saturday 16th October from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Young Enterprise Oxfordshire Area Finals

On 13th May the Oxfordshire County Final of the Young Enterprise HSBC Innovation Awards took place at the Said Business School in Oxford. Twenty one companies from schools across Oxfordshire competed in Area Competitions for nine places, one of which Kapow, the Lower Sixth group from Our Lady’s, had successfully gained. Kapow’s product was Kapow Cooking For Teens, a recipe book created from recipes that have been handed down, or even concocted by, people in the school community.

All of the nine companies competing produced innovative products with well thought-out business plans and good management. They had, after all, competed with 40 Young Enterprise Companies in Oxfordshire to win a place at the final. The judging panel were Dawn Brooks, Sales & Marketing Director, Oxford Instruments, Antony David, managing director, Solid State Logic and Ian Wenman, Chairman, Institute of Directors, Oxfordshire. It was an exciting and close event and Kapow were thrilled to be awarded ‘Best Display Stand’ on the night. Gordon Beach, Chair of Young Enterprise Oxfordshire County Board, who presented the award, commented on how much time, effort and skill had been taken by the group.

Young Enterprise Success – Cowley Trade Fair

On Saturday 20th January the Lower Six Young Enterprise Company Kapow ran a stall at the Young Enterprise Oxfordshire Trade Fair at Templars Square in Cowley.  The event which lasted all day was a huge success as twenty Young Enterprise companies from schools across the county competed for a range of prizes whilst selling their own varied and imaginative products and services. Kapow were selling their product, a cookery book called “Kapow: Cooking for Teens.” The book which features recipes submitted by pupils and friends of Our Lady’s was a huge success on the day and the girls sold practically every copy! As the event ended and the prizes were awarded the girls in Kapow were pleased to be awarded with a 2nd place prize for Best Trade Stand. The judges said that they were impressed by the exceptional quality of Kapow’s product and trade stand. Mrs Griffiths, Miss Moss and Kapow’s business adviser Mr Inger were all very pleased with Kapow’s efforts and look forward to the next trade fair at Stratford in March.

My Experience of Young Enterprise by Jess Landy – Managing Director of Kapow 2010.

When I first started Young Enterprise in September of this year, I didn’t really have any idea of what it would be like. 6 months later and I still don’t really know, because, the truth is, Young Enterprise is a lot of things! You not only learn about setting up and running a business, but also about teamwork, keeping calm in crises (of which there are many!) and how to keep smiling even when you have to trek across Abingdon to deliver a draft of a recipe book to the printers!

The Young Enterprise Company that the lower sixth set up this year is Kapow; and our product: “Kapow Cooking For Teens,” a recipe book created from recipes that have been handed down, or even concocted by, people in our school community. We knew from the start that producing a recipe book was not going to be easy, but as with any company we had to be innovative and original, and we hoped that a recipe book aimed specifically at teenagers would be different enough to arouse interest.

The first thing we had to do was to open a bank account and sell shares in our company to raise enough money to print our books, and then we could get on with the production side of things. This turned out to be a bit more of a challenge, but at last our Production Director, Btari Herlambang, created a great design with recipes in a variety of sections, from “nutritious nibbles” to the slightly less healthy “guilty pleasures!”

Once we had printed the book, we then had the problem of selling, but the unique appeal of our product seemed to grab the attention of passers-by at the several trade fairs we went to (or it might have had something to do with the food on the table – all recipes from our book!) We particularly enjoyed having a stall at the trade fair in Cowely; the atmosphere was friendly, we were able to sell lots of books and were even highly commended for an original and eye-catching stall and product.

It is fair to say that we haven’t always been totally enthusiastic about doing Young Enterprise, particularly when people have had to move from the comfy common room chairs to come to meetings, but everyone has learnt from and enjoyed the many opportunities that it has to offer. Not only did we discover a lot about business, from how to go about finding a cheap printer to doing the finances, but we also developed our ability to work in a group, especially since we held meetings every week, in which everyone participated. What’s more, everyone’s confidence in marketing and selling a product was boosted, especially from our experience at trade fairs when we had to approach complete strangers and ask them to buy our book. Overall, it has been a great experience, and I recommend it for anyone, even people who don’t want to have careers in business, if they want a bit of a challenge.

Finally, we want to say a big thank you to Mrs Griffiths and Miss Moss, who were always ready to help us, and to Mr Inger and Mrs Herlambang who dedicated so much time to making our company a success.
 

Abingdon Carnegie Forum

Twenty-one keen readers from OLA had a wonderful day at Abingdon Guildhall to reward their reading and reviewing of the books nominated for the Carnegie Medal , the prestigious children's book award, whose past  winners include The Borrowers, Watership Down, Tom’s Midnight Garden and Northern Lights.  Joining with other readers from the six secondary schools in Abingdon they discussed  the eight books on the shortlist and then concentrated on their favourite title, preparing a short visual review to convince a panel of judges to read ‘their’ book. 

This successful reading partnership of the six state and independent schools has been running for 10 years, and has lead to joint book quiz sessions, author talks and culminates in an annual Abingdon Carnegie Forum organised by the schools’ Librarians, with over 130 teenagers, Librarians,  English teachers and guest judges participating in a day to celebrate reading.

This year the six schools had special cause to celebrate as Marcus Sedgwick, one of the shortlisted authors came to Abingdon to speak to the Carnegie shadowers, following a writing workshop earlier  in the day with Year 9 at OLA .   At the end of the afternoon the Shadowers voted for their winning book, which was Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson with just one vote separating it from The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness. All eight books were outstanding in their own way and fully deserved their place on the Carnegie Medal shortlist.

Read reviews by OLA shadowers  - there are some excellent ones, and they will make you want to read the books!

OLA winners at the Forum:

Best Book Review (receiving a book token):

• Madeleine Cater for The Graveyard Book

Highly Commended Reviews (receiving a book): 

• Anastasya Herlambang for The Ask and the Answer
• Olivia Pickford for Fever Crumb
• Alice Hawkins for Nation

The 'Best Group Presentation' (receiving books) included Anastasya who helped prepare a visual presentation on Nation. The winner of the Carnegie Medal was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which joins the ranks of the best in children's literature.