We have been very busy with our partner schools over the last few weeks. 

Last Friday we hosted the inaugural Battersea Rise Trust Dragons’ Den competition for five of our partner state primary schools in the Fiennes Theatre. Teams of Year 5 pupils from Alderbrook, Christ Church, Shaftesbury Park, St Faith’s and Thomas’ Academy prepared a business plan and pitch to deliver to the our Dragons. The judges consisted of Rupert Tong, Head of Innovation and Enterprise at Emanuel, Charlie Oppenheim, owner of ParkLife, and Anna Cudson, Chief Executive of Look Fabulous Forever. ParkLife has taken on the challenge to re-invigorate park cafes and owns Skylark Cafe on Wandsworth Common and The Rookery Cafe on Streatham Common. Look Fabulous Forever is an award-winning online cosmetics business aimed at women aged over 50. The overall winners of the competition were Alderbrook primary with Sloth Cosmetics, an eco-friendly natural ingredient based concept with awards also going to Christ Church, St Faith’s, Thomas’s Academy and Shaftesbury Park.

Dragons' Den competition for primary schools

On Wednesday 26th June, Emanuel’s Head of Drama, Clare Fearnley and Graduate Drama Assistant, Lauren Caffyn headed to Sulivan Primary to deliver an inspirational drama session. Sulivan Primary is one of our community partner schools and over the course of an hour Clare and Lauren taught 25 children some of the core skills for performance via interactive and exploratory games. The children divided into small groups and planned how to act out a scene from the classic Alice in Wonderland. Each group then performed their version of the scene to an audience of pupils and teachers, including the Sulivan Primary Headteacher, Wendy Aldridge. The children really enjoyed the performance and it was great to see them grow in confidence across the session

The Battersea Rise Trust Dragons’ Den competition and the Sulivan drama workshop are examples of the many initiatives we have planned and implemented as part of the Battersea Rise Trust’s community partnership programme.  If you are interested in finding out more about our activities, have time and talents to share, we would love to hear from you.

Lisa Irwin (Deputy Development and Community Partnerships Director) 

Miss Caffyn and pupils at Sulivan Primary