Market Days are a fun initiative to raise funds for your school. While they require preparation, organisation and energy, the common goal of raising money for your school not only increases essential funds, but also promotes learning and teamwork. To encourage entrepreneurship among your learners, and to give them the confidence they need to make a success of Market Day, follow these helpful hints.
1. Focus on what sells: Learners should design and implement a questionnaire to determine whether or not people will buy their products. It is important that learners understand their target market and choose their products accordingly. Before the learners decide on their product or service, teachers should help them to choose what to sell. Learning from past experience, teachers can give learners a list of successful and unsuccessful products and services.
2. Be creative together: Learners should work in groups to share ideas and distribute the workload. Because making products is time-consuming, working in groups can increase the number of products made.
3. Set realistic prices: Encourage learners to research what people are willing to pay for their product or service. This will ensure that products are affordable and will sell well.
4. Use recycled goods: Encourage learners to make their products from recycled material. This will reduce the cost of raw materials and therefore increase potential profits. Examples of recycled goods include stationery holders made from cardboard toilet rolls and plants potted in empty cooldrink cans.
5. Focus on services: Services like offering games or washing cars have fewer input costs. This means your profit is likely to be higher on services, compared to products.
6. Create sustainable projects: Many learners really enjoy the Market Day process and want to continue selling their goods. Encourage this enthusiasm, assist learners where possible, and look for opportunities to generate ongoing income for your school. For example, selling vegetables from a school vegetable garden, which learners have planted and tended, is often a popular project supported by surrounding communities.
Visit the Oxford Free Downloads page to download a FREE copy of our Economic and Management Sciences Entrepreneur’s Day Workbook for more practical and creative advice on hosting a successful Market Day.
