Breathing fire into the Dragon's Den

We spent this morning at Mary Hare School near Newbury where sixth formers from there and also from John O'Gaunt Community Technology College were competing in a Dragon's Den style competition.

The event was organised by the West Berkshire Education Business Partnership and my role was to introduce them to SWOT analysis and also to act as one of the business advisors, guiding and inspiring them as they consider video presentations from three local companies who were pitching for £100,000 of funding that the various teams of sixth formers had to invest.

It was great fun and really exciting to hear them identifying real strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - some which would put practicising business folk to shame.

We hope to offer some coaching to the winning team ahead of the grand final and it would be good to follow this through, so watch this space!