(Taken from the The Codrington School, The International School of Barbados 100th Anniversary Special, 2017.
BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL education goes from strength to strength at The Codrington School. The school continues to work alongside various partners across the island to bring out authentic learning experiences for its students.
For a number of years the school has taken part in the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation’s (BEF’s) $20 Challenge. The school enjoys a very close and special relationship with the BEF and its wonderful team of professionals.
The challenge gives all fourth and fifth formers in every school in Barbados the opportunity to run his/her own business. Codrington has dovetailed its involvement in the competition with its very own Middle Years
Programme’s (MYP) Business Management curriculum which was introduced back in 2014.
Students can now study business management from Form 4 up to pre-university qualification level. This academic pathway exposes students to enterprising behaviour along with business organisation, environmental influences, human resources, finance, accounts, marketing, operations management and business planning.
The BEF's $20 Challenge involves the students conceiving of, producing, marketing and selling their very own products. February saw the culmination of this year’s challenge and some of the school’s community attended the awards ceremony and dinner at the Concorde Experience where it saw real success:
Two businesses, one ran by Alexa Legault-Boyjoo (Bliss Blend) and the other by Edward (Ed’s Colouring Cards) were highly commended. We also won four of the top eight category prizes:
- Excellence in Branding — Emilie Fons-Richards and Sara Rossidi (Nature)
- Innovation in Health and Culinary Arts - Aidan Charles (Bajan Essentials)
- Excellence in Research and Development — Emilie Fons-Richards and Sara Rossidi (Nature)
- Niche Market and Spirit of Entrepreneurship — Anais Gajraj and Melissa Boland (Aroma Lite)
The school was also crowned joint national overall champions, led by its very own “Nature”, who developed and sold home-made organic hair care products for young women experiencing “difficult to manage” hair.
This is the now the third year in a row that The Codrington School has been awarded overall national champions. 2014-15 saw Amber McKenzie take the overall prize and 2015-16 was Aurora-Rain Rose’s year.
The last two year’s winners also conceived of some extremely innovative and popular products. Amber with her Organic Essentials, came up with an organic mosquito body repellent which she sold wholesale to beauty shops and retail online.
Aurora and her Seawood Solutions business brought to market a fertiliser which she had manufactured in her own home, made from unwanted sargussum that was a huge issue on several beaches back in the latter part 2015.
Codrington students’ hard work and success was also showcased at the BEF’s Classroom to Boardroom (C2B) 2016. C2B is another example of how The Codrington School is working collaboratively with community partners, such as peer schools, charities and national entrepreneurship bodies creating experiential learning opportunities for its young people.
