Our 2025 Future Business Magnates team has recently taken part in the fifth challenge of the enterprise competition at Beamish Museum.

Led by Miss Curtis, the team of eight students who are all in Year 8, presented their concept at a special event where all participating schools were challenged to set up a stall and convince museum visitors to vote for their idea. The theme for this years competition, which is run by Durham County Council, is 'Reinventing the High Street', and working with a business partner, the challenge is to develop a concept that will benefit their local community.

Our students have developed a concept for a new cafe in the town centre, where both locals and tourists can find out about local history, tourist attractions and events in Bishop Auckland and the surrounding area. The cafe will also include a pop-up shop, which will change every month, and this will give small, independent businesses the chance to sell their products and therefore expand their customer base.

At the beginning of the competition, our team were paired with PDM North East and they have been working with Sandra and Mike who are the owners of the business. We are waiting for the results of the most recent challenge, but are sitting in joint third place on the leader board after four challenges. With one more challenge to go, we wish our team the very best of luck!