Each tutor group decided on their chosen charity and came up with ideas for their stalls. Some of the stalls were; tombola’s, home made cards and gifts, photo booths, candy floss and a selection of games, including guess the name of the reindeer, flip the bottle and bursting a balloon on a cactus.

Citizenship teacher Dr Fiona Rowe said ‘We run the Christmas markets every year to raise money for charity but also to build students' enterprise skills. It’s a bit like a junior apprentice as they are up against other teams. Not only are we raising money for a good cause we are teaching students the SWOT analysis procedures, how the economy works, organisational skills team work and employability skills.’

The end of year activities were mainly organised by Year 10 tutor groups, but Year 11 business students and students from the Sixth Form also took part in their own money-making schemes.

The term began by studying the general and global economies, business and Brexit leading into the production for their stalls in week four. They conducted market research with Years 7 and 8 students as to what would be popular, created prototypes of products and found out what students would pay to see if their products were a viable option.

Dr Rowe said ‘The students have gone through the market themselves and know what they would like to buy and what they spend their money on so they used this knowledge in deciding what products to sell. The experience is brilliant and a fantastic trial run for the real world.’

One Year 10 student said ‘The Christmas markets are part of our citizenship lessons and aim to raise money for charities, and teach us life skills which I feel are very important. I have learnt a lot from this and have really enjoyed the experience.’