Year 6 students at the Primary School of Matthew Flinders Anglican College on the Sunshine Coast this week completed the inaugural Flinders Junior Boss Program, based on one of the largest entrepreneurship programs in Australia.
The Junior Boss Program aims to help prepare and inspire students to develop contemporary skills, knowledge and understanding in order to have a positive social impact on others.
Students are encouraged to explore enterprise and design thinking and to build their social and emotional capabilities through the program's strong focus on empathy.
By challenging students to be creative and to think outside the box, the program has helped the students understand the power of business and given them an opportunity to work in collaborative teams.
The program also gives them the fulfilling experience of providing for others through their own service initiative and social enterprise.
Junior Boss is an immersive learning program, and part of the Primary School’s evolving i-Impact program.
The i-Impact program focuses on embedding design thinking, entrepreneurship, social and emotional capabilities and specific curriculum content into real life contexts to engage and motivate students.
There is a strong focus on cultural, environmental, economic and social enterprise to enable students to genuinely make a positive impact.
The Junior Boss Program was originally developed by the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) and is backed by Financial Literacy Australia.
The social and economic focus of this unit of work enhanced our talented students' enterprise thinking and consideration of both the environment and others.
The program is aligned with the Australian Curriculum and integrates English, Economics, Business and Financial Mathematics.
In addition, our Year 6 students utilised both design and digital technology skills, learnt throughout the year, and used a design mindset that encourages empathy with both the end users of the market products sold, as well as the charities chosen.
Each student received $25 start-up capital (real cash) to create, launch and operate their venture during the course of Term 4.
Each group empathised with the beliefs and actions of their chosen charity, donating all profits from their business at the end of the year.
The first Market Day for our young entrepreneurs at Matthew Flinders Anglican College was an incredible success, providing them with an excellent opportunity to mark the end of their Primary School years by having a positive impact on others.
