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The Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy partnered with Â鶹´«Ã½ United Foundation to welcome 19 students from Emmanuel College and Longbenton High School to take part in our Enterprise Challenge. Working in teams, students researched the factors influencing young men's decisions about higher education and developed creative marketing campaigns based on their findings. 

In-School Sessions 

Students continued working on their projects in school through a series of structured sessions designed to support their research, creativity and presentation skills. 

Across the sessions, students: 

• Revisited the project brief and focused on effective team building, including creating team contracts and identifying individual strengths. 

• Conducted research into higher education, exploring the key factors influencing young men’s decision-making and developing evidence-based findings. 

• Developed social media campaign ideas and began planning how to communicate their message effectively to their target audience. 

• Created and refined marketing materials such as posters, storyboards and mood boards, while preparing their final campaign outputs. 

• Planned and practised their final pitch, developing confidence in presenting their ideas to an audience. 

These sessions supported students to work independently and collaboratively, strengthening their teamwork, communication and creative problem-solving skills.

Celebration Event 

Students returned to campus for the Celebration Event, where they presented their campaigns and showcased everything they had developed. 

In the morning, students presented their work to the judging panel. While one school presented, the other took part in a range of inflatable activities. Although lots of fun, the inflatables also highlighted key entrepreneurial skills including teamwork, resilience, adaptability and confidence. 

In the afternoon, students took part in our ‘From Here to There’ activity, reflecting on their future goals and identifying practical steps to achieve them. Students explored their strengths, considered challenges and set SMART goals to support their next steps. 

The day concluded with Longbenton High School being announced as the overall winners of the NU Enterprise Challenge. 

Impact and Feedback 

Feedback from participants suggested the programme had a positive impact, with 63% of students agreeing that the challenge helped them develop enterprise skills. 

What the Judges said  

“It was a clear winning team, with an interesting take on the use of AI in advertising to appeal to young people. 

“The team had awareness of accessibility, sustainability and produced a really creative idea catered to the target audience. 

“The team also had fun with their idea and clearly enjoyed developing it which made the judges score them higher for their passion. 

What students said 

“It was really fun and I learned a lot.” 

“It is enjoyable and helps teamwork skills.” 

“It helped me learn about university.