This is the second prestigious award we have received for our cutting edge Creative Enterprise programme, having won the Independent School Parent Innovation Award for an Outstanding New Initiative in October 2021. Designed by our Director of Creative Enterprise, Mr Dyson, our key target whilst developing this programme has been to encourage in pupils the skills and confidence required to start a business, while also understanding the importance of social and environmental responsibility and factoring this into their business models.

We achieve this through a creative task in Year 7 (from acrylic butterflies to quotes created with circus lettering!), Tycoon in Schools (Peter Jones) competition for the Lower School, Design Thinking as part of our Upper School Enrichment Programme and, finally, through our Sixth Form Innovation Sprints (a term which involves meeting link entrepreneurs, understanding web design, product design, pitching and investment). Meanwhile, we target local entrepreneurs and invite them into school to discuss their career journey (recent examples include Zena El Farra of Masterpeace and Asher Budwig of Lola’s cupcakes) and seek guidance from Jenny Campbell (former Dragons’ Den panellist). Zena and Jenny recently partook in a GSA Webinar with Mr Dyson and Mrs Elphinstone on Developing a culture of creativity, innovation and enterprise which can be viewed here.

The impact of our programme has been profound; resulting in a cultural shift at FHS towards a spirit of entrepreneurship and social enterprise which now sits alongside and mutually enhances academic success. This is felt throughout our School community, now including the Junior School where Junior Enterprise Fairs and an abundance of other creative activities develop younger girls’ innate curiosity and imagination and give them the ideal preparation to make the most of the Senior School creative enterprise programme and life beyond FHS.

Congratulations to Mr Dyson and all the staff and girls who have come together to date to make the spirit of creativity, innovation, enterprise, social responsibility and entrepreneurial zest so palpable at FHS, resulting in the phenomenal success of this pioneering programme. We are so excited to lead the way in this fascinating field and there are some very interesting developments in the pipeline… watch this space!