Year 11 girls at Badminton School have put the uncertainty of the past few months behind them and have shown their ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit whilst awaiting their GCSE results.
Following on from the success of the School’s Year 11 Enterprise Team, “The Citrus Way”, who were crowned by Peter Jones CBE as Overall Winners and Winners of the successful entrepreneur’s £1k Tycoon Enterprise Competition, Charlotte, also in Year 11 and her younger sister set up an online shop selling face masks. The pair donate 20% of the profits to their local food bank, raising over £600 so far. Charlotte, who will now go on to study English, Computer Science and Psychology at A Level, said “Despite lockdown, this has been the busiest summer of my life! Co-running this business has taught me a surprising amount — from pricing to ironing to writing professional emails. Although it can be stressful and time-consuming, I am sure that the skills I have gained from this venture will be useful in all kinds of ways in the future.”
Badminton’s global community developed into digital learning experts almost overnight, with 1,300 live lessons streamed online across the world through the School’s online platform, “Badminton ConnectED”. Helena, who is going on to study Geography, History and French at A Level said “remote learning has offered a unique opportunity to prepare for the future. I found more free time for enrichment opportunities including completing a Harvard Law online course that enhanced my love for the law and provided foundational knowledge that I can bring into my future studies”.
Extra online learning opportunities including Number Theory, Wellbeing, Persuasive Narratives and Film Analysis have proved popular among the students as a way of supplementing their GCSE studies. Yena, Year 11, commented “despite being away from school, I learnt so many new skills, such as critical analysis in Thinking skills course, identifying physical gestures used by famous politicians in the Persuasive Narrative course, as well as learning ways to keep up my mental health during these uncertain times in the Wellbeing course”.
Mrs Tear, Headmistress at Badminton, commented: “I applaud the girls in Year 11 not only for their resilience in the face of the challenges that the last few months have brought, but more importantly for seizing the new opportunities that this unique situation has presented. The depth of their creativity and innovation has known no bounds and I am very proud of them all, as well as the Badminton community as a whole.”
