FIVE Year 9 students from King’s Ely Senior have become the first ever winners of a business challenge for young people run by global brand giant Coca Cola – and they did it in Spanish.

Sally Kim, Gloria Kasket, Katie Diss, Sophie Wood and Jelena Rois won the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) round of the Real Business Challenge, an initiative for students in Year 9 and 10 which aims to develop employability skills to provide a competitive edge in today’s job market.

It was the first time that the annual competition, facilitated by Routes into Languages East, gave students the option of completing the challenge in French, German or Spanish, as the ability to use a foreign language is regarded as a great asset when it comes to looking for work.

During the challenge, the students had to form a company and develop a new sustainable healthy juice brand. In their chosen language of Spanish, they then had to develop a presentation on their brand and write documents including key information about the team, the ingredients, cost, price and profit. They had also to think about the country where they would sell their drink and

how the company could be positioned as a social enterprise.

Esmeralda Salgado, Head of MFL and Spanish at King’s Ely Senior, said: “Our students came up with a very original product linked to story books which could be sold in Guatemala to help raise literacy skills in children. Their product was imaginative and showed great language ability together with impressive business skills.”

As winners of the first MFL Real Business Challenge, the Senior students have been invited to work with a business mentor from Coca Cola and a Spanish speaker on a live project in Norwich next Monday (February 10), where they will receive also their trophy.

 

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