Advertising Executive for the Sale & Altrincham Messenger Ben Hagen joined a panel of Year 11 students recently to judge teams of aspiring Year 7 students promoting their own new brands of chocolate.

The teams of Year 7 students were taking part in a day of activities bringing together their English and IT skills. Teamworking, creativity, time management and presentation were also being tested. Challenged to create, name and promote a new brand, they had just two hours to develop their product which was then pitched to Ben and the panel (Kirsty Mansfield, Joel Perkins and Hannah Smith) to choose the best. Their reward - Asda vouchers to spend, maybe on their own favourite brands of chocolate?

The day is one of a series of Flexible Fridays, which take students off their normal timetable for a few hours to bring together different areas of work in team challenges and learning activities. The day culminated in presentations in the hall in front of the whole of Year 7: the winning team from each form had five minutes to talk about their winning wrapper design and animated advert.

After a tense “Strictly Come Dancing”-style judging process in which Ben and the panel awarded marks out of 10 to each team, the winners were announced as Azziza Tate and Jamie Lee Cawley.

Head of ICT Miss Wolfsohn said “It’s been a really exciting day for the students - they have had lots of fun developing
their ideas and presenting them to the judges but they’ve also learnt to work together and increased a wide range of skills.”

Head of English Mr Williams added: “The students have had to use their speaking, writing, negotiating and debating skills, which are all vital skills for the future.”