Urbleshanny National School

Ms McManus's 5th/6th class have been participating in the Junior Entrepreneur Programme for the past number of months.The programme gives primary school pupils in Ireland the opportunity to experience practical, real-life business learning as part of their formative education. It nurtures creativity, independence and problem-solving among pupils of all abilities. Howard Gardner defined eight types of intelligences. Successful entrepreneurs always seem to have several good intelligences such as making good business plans, convincing others of that plan and visualising it. An entrepreneur has excellent vision and works tirelessly to achieve that. The pupils came up with many ideas for their project and discussed this with Mrs Smyth, Ms McManus and local entrepreneur, Ciaran Corley. The end result, after much consultation, was a board game called Escape School. It's a game that involves getting out of school first by progressing round the board by answering a variety of questions and completing challenges. Three categories of questions comprise the challenges: English and Irish, Maths, History, Geography, Science and General Knowledge. While Friday the 13th may be unlucky for some, our Junior Entrepreneurs were very successful in selling their wares today. Various classes from 1st to 6th visited today for the presentation and queued to purchase the board games which are graded for Lower Primary, Middle primary and Upper Primary. North Monaghan is known for its strong work ethic and entrepreneurial outlook so with wonderful co-operation and team spirit, Ms McManus' class have fulfilled their plans and created their product with the help of parents, grandparents and staff. Our future entrepreneurs should have as their motto 'Carpe Diem'.