Configur Academy - Summer Term, Week 6

Dear Parents,

We are 6 weeks into Young Founders House and Rise to Lead, with half-term about to give us all a small breath before the final stretch into the market and the showcase. I wanted to take this evening to tell you what happened in both rooms this week, and what is coming next.

This week's challenge was Lily, the picky eater. Her mum had tried hiding broccoli in pasta sauce, bribing her with stickers, and banning pudding until the peas were eaten. Nothing had worked. The children's job was to come up with a product or a service that solves Lily's mum's problem, work out what it would cost them to make or deliver, and decide what to charge.

What came out of those 10 minutes of team time surprised me. One team built an aubergine pizza, designed specifically for a child who refuses anything green. Another team sweetened vegetables into a snack format that looked like a treat but worked like greens. A third team designed a robot whose job was to help children enjoy eating vegetables. The ideas came fast, and most of them were aimed not at the child but at the parent, which is exactly the lesson hidden inside the challenge. Lily's mum is the one with the money. Lily's mum is the customer.

What pleased me most this week was the maths. Every team gave me 3 numbers without being asked twice. What it costs to make. What they will charge. What the profit is. They are no longer guessing at the price. They understand that the selling price has to sit above the cost or the business does not work, and they calculate profit as a matter of routine now. That shift, from "I want to sell this thing" to "this thing has to make me money", is the whole point of Young Founders House. They have it.

After the pitches, every child was handed £18 in fake money. A £10 note, a £5 note, a £2 coin and a £1 coin. The rule was simple. You cannot vote for your own team. You put your strongest opinion behind your strongest pick. The room went quiet in a way it does not usually go quiet. 😀 They walked up, placed their money under the jar of the team that convinced them most, and then every team counted their own jar. Every single team counted correctly. That is worth saying out loud.

The team with the most money in their jar this week was The Blue Team, The Bestsellers.

https://configuracademy.com/young-founders-market

This week, the children put their teams forward as candidates for a new seat in the House of Parliament. The brief was this. For the first time in history, a seat has been created in Parliament for a team of children rather than an adult. Whichever team wins, it represents every child in the world for a year. They sit in Parliament alongside the Prime Minister. They speak about what children need. They are listened to.

Their job was to write the opening line of their candidacy speech, deliver it to the room, and let the audience vote on whose opening line made them want to hear what came next.

The promises that landed in those speeches were genuinely creative. No homework. Better food in schools. More playgrounds. Some teams brought the Prime Minister into the story directly, addressing him by name as the person they were trying to convince. I had to remind myself a few times that this was 8 to 10-year-olds, working under time pressure, with no preparation.

The Red team, The Red Winners, won the candidacy vote.

Before the candidacy challenge, we spent 10 minutes on what makes an opening line actually work. The analogy we used was the movie trailer. A trailer never explains what a film is about. It drops you into one moment. It shows you the best thing, not a summary of the whole thing. And its only job is to make you want to watch the rest.

We applied the same three rules to the opening of a speech:

If your child has time over the break and feels like writing, please do encourage them. They do not need to produce a finished speech. The opening sentence, two or three ideas for the middle, and an ending are more than enough. They already know the techniques. The sandwich structure. The movie trailer opener. The Hook, Build, Land shape. They have been using all of it.

What I would much rather see is a rough draft they have lived with for a week, than something polished thrown together the night before. When we are back, I will sit with each of them, read it through, and help them shape it. That is what the rest of the term is for.

Rise to Lead

Rise to Lead Final Showcase

Both parents are very welcome, grandparents and siblings too. If your circumstances change closer to the day, do let me know. We will work it out.

Young Founders House

Young Founders Market

That is everything from this week. As always, if you have a question about either programme or if there is anything you would like to talk through, you can reply to this email or message me directly on 07414 962803.

If you have missed any of our previous newsletters, you can catch up on them all here:
https://newsletter.configuracademy.com/

Have a lovely weekend.

Orgesa
Founder,
Configur Academy
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