Social Enterprise Schools Showcase

I’ve been reflecting recently on why we are always so inspired by the social enterprises young people across Scotland set up every year. Ultimately, I think it’s because it’s amazing to see them actually take action on the issues that affect us all on a daily basis.

I often chat to my neighbours about how variable the weather is due to climate change, or wonder about someone in the block next door who seems to be alone every time we see them. But how many of us actually take action to tackle these issues or improve someone else’s situation?

The young people who take part in Social Enterprise Schools have these exact same conversations with their friends. The difference is that they are actively taking steps to make a change.

By choosing and leading every part of their social enterprise, pupils feel complete ownership; bubbling over with excitement whenever they speak to us about what they are going to do next week, next month, or next year to incorporate new ideas and increase their impact.

It doesn’t need to take much - a small action can be exactly what’s needed to make a positive impact on someone’s life or the local environment. From there, that initial first step can lead to more action, creating ripples of change that lead to a sustainable social enterprise with a big impact on an entire community.

I hope that the stories in this showcase make you feel as inspired as we are by Scotland’s young people. And who knows, maybe the next time you have a chat with a neighbour you could ask yourself what we ask young people across the country every day: “If you could start a business to tackle a social or environmental issue in your community, what would you do?”

Emily Mnyayi, Head of Education, Social Enterprise Academy

We’d love to hear more about how your social enterprises are developing, so please do keep in touch and share your stories!

Showcase content

4. About Social Enterprise Schools

5. Impact in Scotland’s Schools

Highlands, Islands and North Scotland

6. Muirtown Primary School

7. Fortrose Academy

8. Bun Sgoil Phort Righ

9. Banchory-Devenick Primary School

Central and East Scotland

12. Breadalbane Primary School

13. James Young High School

14. Dunblane Primary School

15. Glebelands Primary School

16. Blairhall Primary School

17. Tulliallan Primary School

West Scotland

18. Chapeltown Primary School

19. Hillview Primary School

20. Woodfarm High School

21. Hollybrook Academy

22. St Albert’s Primary School

South Scotland

24. Marr College

25. Broughton High School

26. Dirleton Primary School

About social enterprise schools

Innovated in partnership with the Scottish Government, Social Enterprise Schools enables every young person to step up, realise their potential, and create the change they want to see in the world. Now in its 15th year, this fully-funded programme delivers transformational learning by engaging young people in the real-life experience of running their own viable business while making a positive impact in their communities. This pupil-led programme supports young people to identify environmental or social issues they want to solve and inspires them to establish a sustainable social enterprise business in order to make that change happen. The programme facilitates transformational learning for all involved while developing young people’s skills for the future, enabling them to make a difference in their community. The Social Enterprise Schools team provides teacher and pupil support throughout the year with dedicated area coordinators, online resources, teacher CPDs, facilitated pupil workshops, dragons’ den competitions, mentoring from social entrepreneurs, and the chance to be recognised at the national Social Enterprise Academy Awards.

Social Enterprise Schools continues to grow every year and over 1,100 schools across Scotland have taken part and many of their social enterprises are still active today.

Around the world

There are inspiring young people creating positive change around the world as Social Enterprise Schools grows in Australia, Egypt, South Africa, Malaysia and England. Find out more:

Muirtown primary Soap-topia!

Tell us about your social enterprise

29 P5 pupils at Muirtown Primary School in Inverness set up their social enterprise called Soaptopia and learned all about different roles within a business aswell as how to apply their maths, science, literacy and communication skills in a real-life context. The pupils learned how to make soap and created some wonderful scents including green apple, clementine and prosecco, black cherry and honeysuckle!

They produced home-made packaging by upcycled and decorating clam shells sourced from local fishers. They were able to successfully sell their products at school events and ran a hugely popular stall at the Social Enterprise Academy Awards and Marketplace in Inverness attended by Maree Todd MSP. After being featured in the local newspaper their financial target was reached and Soaptopia were able to purchase a bench for residents with learning disabilities at Maple Ridge Care Home for them to enjoy in their garden for years to come.

One of the best projects I have ever done was through the Social Enterprise Academy. Loved it, highly recommend!” Head Teacher

Fortrose Academy Fortrose

venture

Tell us about your social enterprise

Fortrose Venture is a social enterprise created by a group of 12 pupils from Fortrose Academy who wanted their company to address the issue of isolation in the elderly population and to enable interaction with younger generations by creating tools to help communicate. The group created a range of sustainable products designed to meet their company objectives, including a simple and innovative conversation board game ‘Past Times’, their unique take on a dementia memory mitt and a ‘Knit your own mitt’ kit.

Past Times

The board game is designed to spark memories and works well as a prompt for intergenerational conversations. It can be used by carers or in healthcare, particularly with people living with dementia to spark longer term memories.

Dementia mitt

Dementia mitts are used to help people living with dementia to stay relaxed and engaged by fidgeting, and Venture’s mitt is made from different textures of wool and has small items such as buttons attached to fiddle with.

Knit your own mitt kit

Venture created a kit that comes with all the required materials to ‘knit your own mitt’. It has proved popular as a gift and as a good way of tackling loneliness as carehome residents enjoyed having a good chat whilst knitting their mitt!

This impactful school social enterprise went on to win our own Social Enterprise in Education Award and was also awarded at the National Young Enterprise Awards. Their products went on to be purchased by carehome providers and individuals.

Bun sgoil phort righ

Supporting sustainable wool Production

Tell us about your social enterprise

P7 Pupils at the Gaelic school in Portree, Isle of Skye took part in our workshop delivered in Gaelic Medium. They decided that they wanted to highlight the negative environmental impact of importing New Zealand wool to our islands and to promote the use of local wool from crofters, whose fleeces often were having to go to waste!

The cost of selling and transporting the fleeces for processing was economically not viable for the crofters. The pupils wanted to raise awareness of the issue and so by involving parents and asking NFU Scotland for help, the young people learned how to prepare and felt the fleeces and use the wool to create their wonderful wool ball product for tumble driers!

The school are now successfully marketing the product across social media channels and at local sales points.

During lockdown the group made a persuasive pitch in Gaelic via pre-recorded video (featuring plenty of sheep!) to our panel of Dragons and the group won seedfunding for their venture.

What are the next steps?

Pupils plan to develop their range of products and will hand over the business to younger pupils when they transition to High School.

Well done to all involved and I look forward to seeing how this and other products develops. Thank you!”

Martin Kennedy, NFU Scotland

“Gnìomhachas a tarraing eòlas

bh’on chultar, a tha furachail mu’n àrainneachd agus le fìor deagh bathar.” Anna Mhàrtainn, SEA Facilitator

Banchory-Devenick School Bungle book

Tell us about your social enterprise

After learning about the Rainforests and Fair Trade, primary 5-7 pupils wanted to do something to help farmers and their families, so they decided to set up a Fair Trade tuck shop. They made a film ‘Bungle Book’ to raise awareness of the difficulties that people in Rainforest communities face. They formed a company and each had a role in it. A £250 start up grant from Scotmid Co-op helped them get going with their tuckshop which runs every second week. The children do the selling, and work alongside school’s admin to add the income and expenditure to a spreadsheet.

In addition to the tuck shop, the young people make and sell handmade products such as friendship bracelets and keyrings to help fund their tuckshop and boost their profits for Fairtrade Foundation.

I am very proud of what the children have achieved in such a short time. Their energy and enthusiasm is infectious and through their engagement with social enterprise they are developing intrinsic qualities such as empathy as well as gaining invaluable life skills. And best of all…they are doing the washing up at the end of each tuckshop!

Karen Downie, Head Teacher

Social Enterprise Schools plays an extremely important role in the development of Scotland’s young people.

Pupils are engaging in the practical and creative skills required to run a business while making a difference to causes they truly care about.

I look forward to supporting the Social Enterprise Academy as it continues to offer the programme to even more schools across the country.”

Shirley-Anne Somerville, The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills

Breadalbane primary Nature’s wood

Tell us about your social enterprise

This school’s social enterprise is to transform a ‘forgotten corner’ of the school grounds into a safe and happier space for outdoor learning. From clearing rubbish to lopping branches to making natural paths to collecting branches to building dens and bird boxes, this very busy group of P6 and 7’s are helping the environment and keeping it safe for nature and children. Creating ‘Nature’s Wood' was made possible through the hard work of all involved, including writing letters to businesses in the local community asking for support and resources.

They hope to continue to keep their space as wild as possible, sustaining it for many decades to come.

James young high school i-Discover Climate Change

Tell us about your social enterprise

Following a successful presentation at the Climate Change Dragons’ Den event in Glasgow, the team of First Year pupils here at The James Young High School have used their prize money to purchase a composting bin and a set of collection caddy bins. We have a process in place to collect fruit waste from collection points around the school and gather this in the composting bin. We are waiting patiently for this to turn into a highly nutritious compost that we can use around our existing fruit trees to complete a full turn of the healthy eating food cycle.

Why is this important?

With several areas of social deprivation in our catchment area, and the current climate of rising cost of living, we believe that healthy eating and the ability to grow our own healthy foods is an important message to spread across our school community of young learners and their families. By encouraging wide involvement in this activity throughout our school week we believe that we can help healthy eating be seen as a natural daily routine.

What are the benefits?

The social enterprise has encouraged healthy eating habits and spread awareness of the food cycle and the ability for food to be produced locally. Pupils have taken responsibility for managing and maintaining the process, even when this interrupts their social activities and involves a rather messy and laborious collection and storage process. The composting process itself takes time, however, this will become a continuous cycle of fruit growing, eating, waste collection, composting and tree-feeding, hopefully for many years to come.

This initiative has given our pupils confidence to identify and take on a socio-environment cause, make a successful pitch, and turn their idea into a long-term reality.” Class Teacher

Dunblane primary Up-cycling single use plastic

Tell us about your social enterprise

Through investigating the Sustainable Global Goals, Primary 5 pupils at Dunblane Primary identified that their school had a problem with too much litter in the playground and that they used too many plastic bottles due to COVID restrictions at lunchtime.

Determined to make a difference to global warming and plastic pollution, as well as caring for animals, they very quickly set up two social enterprises. One focuses on recycling crisp bags, by collecting these from their peers, they then make and sell crisp bag necklaces. Not only helping the environment but they also donate their profits to RSPCA and WWF. The second social enterprise collects all the plastic bottles in the school and turns them into mindfulness jars, again helping reduce plastic pollution but also helping support health and wellbeing within their school. Their social aim is to protect endangered animals, with a focus on deforestation and climate change prevention.

They have identified 4 ways in which they can approach this: save energy; reduce single use plastic; save water; and encourage more healthy daily habits such as walking over driving and eating less meat.

The enterprise activity is based around keychain and badge making, that they are selling to families and members of the community using order forms. They have also agreed with a local social enterprise (WayAhead), to drop off all their unsold stock to be sold in their shopfront. They have also identified 'Scotland Wildlife Trust' and 'Scottish Wildlife Fund' as charities they would like to donate to, if they have surplus profits they cover the cost of their materials.

They are trading regularly and involving their whole school. They presented their project to the school and made announcements in their bulletin to ask for orders but also for support. They also wanted to do this to raise awareness and to allow for donation of bottle caps and other materials that they need to make their badges and keychains.

Tell us about your social enterprise

Dragons’ Den Winners, #dontrecycleracism aim to raise awareness of the impact racism has on local communities and educate children with how to deal with racism when they are victims or witnesses. The Primary 5 children have worked with Biffa and Jigsaw Media to design and create a sticker that will be placed on over 1000 bins in the local area and all bins in the primary school classrooms.

The sticker features a QR code that links to their bespoke website which will be updated with relevant information to educate and help primary school aged children and their parents.

What about the sustainability side?

They have sourced sustainable products, namely aluminium water bottles and tote bags which bear #dontrecycleracism and they are selling them on their website to help make their social enterprise sustainable. The project featured on a BBC documentary, The Truth About Scotland and Racism.

We’ve seen such amazing drive in our pupils when they get to work on something that’s important to them. It’s inspiring to see them deciding to tackle such a sensitive issue and wanting to make a difference

Robert Gill, Headteacher

Glebelands primary #Dontrecylceracism

Dundee

Blairhall primary Blairhall bakes

Why is it important?

Our social enterprise is important because we can show our commitment to sustainability. It is also important because we want to bring everyone back to Blairhall Bakes in a safe way.

What are the benefits?

Tell us about your social enterprise

Our social and environmental cause is that we would like to bring families together and have an impact on people's eating habits, Also, we would like to bring Blairhall Bakes to our community.

We are going to be selling our advertisements/ products in the future. But we are planning to sell our soup bags during the times of May.

The benefits of running this social enterprise are that people can rely on the freshly grown ingredients from Blairhall. Another benefit is that we would like to get into the swing of Blairhall which we are very excited to do so.

Tell us about your time at the SEA Awards

We had an amazing day at the Awards. We were so proud and privileged to have our first buyer of the day at our stall be Shirley-Anne Somerville. We hope one day she is able to visit our school and see Blairhall Bakes in full swing!

It’s given the children the chance to be leaders themselves... It was completely their ship and it was really nice to see them get that opportunity to really lead and take control of what they want their enterprise to look like.”

Julie Galbraith, Class Teacher

Tulliallan primary Tasty Treats

P5 give 100 free breakfast bags out every week. Lots of young people don't have a good breakfast and having breakfast is important for wellbeing and learning. The plan is to sell personalised water bottles and we believe our cause and product has many benefits: it helps families, keeps learners fed and hydrated, stops plastic waste and helps people be happy at school.

Tell us about the social enterprise

In 2021/2022, we brought together a Social Enterprise Committee again and we created some seasonal treats which were very popular; snowmen mugs with hot chocolate at Christmas (£224.36 profit) and chick cups with Easter treats (£182.26 profit). This gave us a starting fund to plan future social enterprise activity and, since then, our committee has split into 3 groups each with a different cause and product which we will be trading this term.

P6's cause is our allotment. As a school, we want to support a healthy diet and give learners opportunities to grow and cook food and help our environment. This also helps us to build teamwork skills and our plan is to sell sunflower pots to fund the compost and seeds to continue to grow this important project.

P7 have taken a more global view with their 'Chews to help Ukraine.' They aim to support children and families who have been separated because of war and have chosen to send profit to UNICEF. To achieve this, P7 are making sweet cones full of yellow and blue sweets and are encouraging the community, including local shops and cafes, to get involved.

This year, P7 have taken a more global view with their 'Chews to help Ukraine.' They are keen to support children and families who have been separated because of war.” Class Teacher

Chapelton Primary One Small Step

Tell us about your social enterprise

Our idea is to make and sell an ecofriendly starter kit which will promote awareness of the worries children and young people have about the future of the environment. Buying our product will make children feel that they are making a difference so it will help children’s mental health while looking after the future of the planet. We have created a starter kit for a healthier future for our planet. This includes a bamboo toothbrush and reusable straw, a face cloth (to discourage wipes etc.), an eco-friendly stationery set (with positive messages about sustainability), a seed bomb to attract butterflies and bees to your garden and a wooden keyring.

Why is it important?

After experiencing a loss in our class, we understand how important it is to support children’s mental health. We would like to encourage children to feel that they can make a difference, however small. Our message is that every journey begins with one small step. We hope our starter kits will start a conversation about looking after our world.

HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU MADE?

We have raised initially £50 of seed money and an extra £50 from The Social Enterprise Academy by winning Dragons Den. We have raised £61 from our Seeds of Change plant sale where we sold baby spider plants to raise money. And £100 was invested by our Fairtrade Committee in our enterprise. We have created a brochure with an order form to send home with every child. We have designed posters to advertise around our village. And we will make a short video to advertise on our school app and twitter account to launch our activity,

We work on this every day and we have improved our Literacy, Numeracy, Health and Well-Being, and Art skills by working on this project.” Pupil

Hillview Primary School Reduce Clothing Waste

Tell us about your social enterprise

“So we take old uniforms put them into like a trolley thing and we will wash them with eco-friendly washing powder and we'll put them back up so people who are like struggling with like buying new school uniform, they could just come and get it and people can get stuff for like a really small price like 50p and then you don't need to worry about paying like for school uniforms and stuff.” Pupil

“We want to spread the word to our parents and carers about the importance of recycling and less waste.” Sophie, P7

“I'm excited to see people walking away with new clothes so that they don't have to buy it and so they're happy.” Pupil

What are the next steps?

“Our next steps are too reach out to nursery school pupils and we’re also looking at trialing School bags and pencil cases. We thought we could reach more people with this since people get a new one every year. They don't need to do that every year. And after that we’ll be looking at Christmas jumpers. Pupil

Why do you think Young people are important for tackling climate change?

“Because kids unlike adults are less likely to lie about it” P7 Pupil

Woodfarm High School

Woodfarm Eco Warriors

They've been looking online, on the Sainsbury's website and doing a bit of budgeting. The pupils research what type of food is needed at the food bank and change the shopping list every week.

At Christmas time, they added some extra toiletries and some nicer products that might be seen as a present, and included some Christmas themed food.

Why is it important?

Tell us about your social enterprise

We collect waste bottles and cans from around the school and exchanges them for money that can be used to support local foodbanks.

Our social enterprise involves the schools math class. It demonstrates real life applications of maths. Pupils have to use numeracy skills to work out how much money they’re earning and how are we going to spend that money.

Ideally, there wouldn’t be any plastic and cans in schools. Until we get there, the plastic that we have, we will try and recycle it and make sure that we get some money for it and use that to work towards ending hunger.

What are the benefits of running this social enterprise?

Young people involved have developed new nonverbal skills that they will use in life outside of and after school.

“Every Friday is their favourite period of the week. It's really bonded them as a class. They look forward to working together, they look forward to going out in their teams, they collect the bottles and they are really enthusiastic about the impact of what they're doing.” Class Teacher

Holybrook Academy

PC Repair shop

What has your trading activity been like?

To get started, we sold a number of older iPads to a recycling company and raised £300. We have formed a partnership with the Remade Network and we hope to sell our products through their physical store. We aim to charge £200 for a PC, mouse, and keyboard.

Tell us about your social enterprise

We want to refurbish and upgrade old PCs, reduce electronic waste, and provide our customers with affordable access to technology. As S3 pupils, we decided to lead the enterprise as it falls within the Developing Young Workforce programme.

Why is it important?

Electronic waste is a massive problem which not only harms the environment but can create harmful substances for populations. We know our enterprise could reduce the amount of e-waste generated by the consumer electronics industry.

We are currently promoting our products through social media. We expect to produce four PCs for sale with our current supply of components, which would give us a potential turnover of £800.

What are the benefits of running this social enterprise?

The main benefits of running this social enterprise will be to learn new valuable hardware and software technology skills by repairing and upgrading computers, reducing Electronic Waste and re-using available technology items whilst supplying affordable technology products and improving digital literacy levels in the local community.

We want to use it to help educate our peers and customers about repairing and upgrading older technology rather than replacing it.” Pupil

St albert's Primary School

Diverse Forces

Tell us about your social enterprise

100% of the stories feature BAME characters. Pupils carried out a survey of their school library and it was found that only 1% of children’s books had a main character who was black, Asian or minority ethnic. UK-wide, over 1/3 of primary school children belong to these ethnic groups. At St. Albert’s, over 90% of our pupils are BAME. They couldn’t identify with the characters in the books available to them. So we decided to write our own.

‘Diverse Forces’ aims to tackle the lack of representation in children's literature by writing, illustrating and publishing books co-written with three BAME authors.

The 18 stories have been published as 3 books of 6 stories and are for sale as part of our social enterprise work.

By including characters and names that reflect their own backgrounds - such as female superheroes wearing hijabsyoung people feel empowered.

The team at the Social Enterprise Academy have supported us and given the children much deserved recognition for their work. Helping our pupils develop their passion for creating the change they want to see within our local community is at the very heart of our culturally responsive curriculum at St. Albert’s, and it’s a privilege to help them to realise their potential and action their ideas.” Pupil

Children need to realise how special and diverse they are.” Pupil

Marr college

Supporting local charities

Tell us about your social enterprise

S3 pupils set up a social enterprise to support local charities. They make and sell products, run a coffee and cake service for staff at the school and ran an online quiz with profits going to local charities.

They raise funds for the school’s Social Fund where students, staff and groups can apply for funding for their activities.

The students were supporting a local youth club before it was closed, so when they were coming up with a new social cause they gave an opportunity to the rest of the community to have a say.

What has your trading activity been like?

The social enterprise at Marr College has been running for several years now and so far is reaching profits of over £50 daily. The café is currently open only to staff members, but the young people are coming up with new and inventive ways to improve the ordering process and offer it to the rest of the staff.

It has also been a massive benefit to the school community as its allowed them a chance to think about their own ideas for positive change.

The greatest benefit of running the social enterprise café at Marr College has been the opportunity to be involved hands on in running a business and developing the skills to make it successful.” Class Teacher

Broughton High School

Bro on the Go

Tell us about your social enterprise

Broughton High School pupils have relaunched their incredibly successful social enterprise café as a take away café in the school garden. This will work well in summer, and once the weather turns, they will restart BRO Café indoors again.

The take away garden café will be launched as BRO-on-the-GO allowing a safe outdoor space in a lovely natural environment.

Who is involved in the social enterprise?

The pupils at Broughton High School, supported by Deputy Head Teacher Pauline Cummings and support Nadia Williams, worked hard at transforming the unused outdoor space into an urban retreat, complete with an herb and vegetable garden. The pupils were supported in making the wonderful confectionaries by Ms. Williams and developed a list of recipes and products to sell at their café to suits the season.

Bro-on-the-Go is continuing with the Bro Café social purpose of eliminating isolation in their community and is open to all members of any age in the area where everyone can take part in activities promoting inter-generational communication.“ Class Teacher

Dirleton primary

The story corner

Tell us about your social enterprise

Core of the Community is a social enterprise selling fresh apples and apple products in order to fund activities and packages to combat isolation among the elderly members of their community. They get the apples from the school’s orchard, which was planted to celebrate the school’s centenary.

What are the benefits of running this social enterprise?

Developing leadership skills among the pupils in our school and working closely with our community to bring an end to social isolation. The benefits of running the Core of the Community have been both to the young people and the community. The young people running the social enterprise have developed very strong leadership skills as well as confidence in their abilities to prepare and sell products.

To give back to the local community and engage in intergenerational activities.

What has the reception to this social enterprise been like?

The pupils at Dirleton Primary have been selling their apples and apple products at the Dirleton market four Saturdays a year. So far they have had a great interest from both parents and staff as well as the wider community and have sold out each time. With the profits this year they worked with their local community centre to put together care packages for isolated community members.

“Social Enterprise Schools allowed so many members of my class a chance to be creative, innovative and enjoy trying new ways to overcome obstacles. The sense of team created through the project was great.”

Alyson Mackay, Pupil