Society has moved a long way in the past 30 years, when most people expected to “get a proper job” in a large organisation to the way the world works today. Since the early 1990s when approximately 1.5 billion workers entered the free market system, leaving planned economies and socialism behind (in countries like India, China and Eastern Europe) the whole world has had to start adapting to global competition for goods, services and labour.

It is no longer good enough to get a basic education – to have any real prospect for a successful future, whether this is at an individual level or at a national level, young people who have to face the future need an additional set of qualities and abilities. We summarise these as “entrepreneurial skills” and through this to gain a level of self-confidence and self-belief in their capabilities.

The Transitions team has taken an active interest in the teaching of enterprise in schools since the publication of the Howard Davies Report. The foundation of this interest is a belief that so much of what Transitions already do is relevant to what the government aspires to achieve in schools. Every Key Stage Four pupil in England now has an entitlement to five days of enterprise education. In the field of enterprise and entrepreneurship Transitions is a hub for the leading best practice and research outputs generated in the higher education sector over the last decade. Cambridge's Dr Vyakarnam is one of the UK's leading thinkers on enterprise and entrepreneurship, Mark Delamere is one of the UK's first graduates of an enterprise and entrepreneurship Masters Degree whilst Simon Pratten has been an entrepreneur himself for over a decade whilst teaching enterprise and entrepreneurship to businesses all over the UK and Simon Stockley one of the star teachers of enterprise at Imperial College. With an enterprise network that ranges from Transitions' academic bases of Cambridge and Nottingham to MIT in the USA and all across the world Transitions have extensive knowledge and experience of effective enterprise learning/ inspiring techniques.

Together with fellow teachers and Heads of schools across the UK and with the assistance of colleagues at Specialist Schools Trusts we have developed a portfolio of support in the following areas:

We now have a growing track record in the following areas:

• Design of entire courses in enterprise and entrepreneurship.
• Design of shorter units in aspects of enterprise and entrepreneurship.
• Training of teachers in the delivery of enterprise education.
• Facilitating discussions on the role of entrepreneurs, their motivations.
• Running skills sessions that provide students with practise in presentations, selling, negotiating, creative generation of business and social enterprises.
• Knowledge to assess the viability of ideas and how to modify ideas so they can be thought of as opportunities.
• Understanding enterprise content in such as way as to help raise self-awareness – “Is this for me?”
• Providing self-confidence and self-belief in themselves.
• Understanding that entrepreneurial skills can be transferable across employment in all sectors.

Our expertise and knowledge stems from the work we are doing in the development and delivery of enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes with:

• Specialist Schools Trust
• Imperial College London
• University of Notre Dame
• DfES regarding the enterprise curriculum for Key Stage 4
• University of Cambridge Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning
• University of Essex Enterprise Programmes
• University of Reading Enterprise Programmes
• University of Nottingham – Mark Delamere research into enterprise education in schools
• BBC – Mark Delamere Radio One documentary on enterprise

Contact

mark@transitions.co.uk
www.nottingham.ac.uk/enterprise