The Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy launch first enterprise week with Newcastle University
12 May 2025
The Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy, in collaboration with Newcastle University, launched our official first week of Enterprise Days for schools/colleges. Between the 13th of October to the 17th of October, we welcomed over 150 students from North East schools on to campus for their own bespoke Enterprise Day experience.
The Rob Wood Enterprising Futures Academy’s work with schools and colleges aims to increase entrepreneurial awareness and equip students with the tools to succeed in enterprise and in life. From our pre- and post-event evaluations, we found a 13% increase in attendees who were interested in being their own boss in the future. Our schools and colleges outreach offering focuses primarily on transferrable skills and reinforces our key message that enterprise is for everyone regardless of their background. Before attending, only 40% of attendees felt that they had already had opportunities to develop key employability skills. Following the events, 75% of responders agreed that our activities had helped to improve these skills which shows the impact of hands-on enterprise learning.
Our other key focus is perhaps the most important - fun! The sessions got attendees thinking about enterprise skills and entrepreneurship whilst competing against their peers. Our most popular activity was ‘Egg-cecutive’ a fast-paced egg drop challenge
which encourages students to think creatively about the materials they are provided and produce a solution to a problem.
It was lovely to see the positive feedback left by the schools on their social media pages (Park View School & Sandhill View Academy).
The students also left us some nice comments:
- “Overall, it was really fun, and I will now consider joining uni when it is time.”
- “It was very engaging.”
- “I had a really good time and everyone was really nice.”
After a successful first week, we are now looking forward to our fully booked December Enterprising Futures Week (1-5th December 2025), as we expect 200 students in years 9 and 10 from the North of England will join us to discover their potential!
If you are interested in learning more about these events, please contact us at enterprising.futures@newcastle.ac.uk.