NatWest Enterprise Challenge: an Inside Look 

B Block turns local heritage into business ideas.

Repton's B Block pupils stepped away from the timetable on Tuesday 8 September for the NatWest entrepreneurship challenge, building business ideas rooted in the history and heritage of the local area.

Working in teams, pupils took a single concept and developed it into a proposition with the potential to grow nationally or internationally. They worked out who their customers would be, what would make the business viable, and how they would brand and market it - then presented their ideas to the rest of the group.

Ideas ranged from the practical to the playful. One team designed a shop for Repton Sports Centre, offering athletes healthy, affordable fuel before and after training. Another noticed that, while the School Shop has been serving pupils since 1901, Repton has no dedicated stationery shop. Their answer was Repton Rulers, a shop for pupils who regularly lose track of their pens and pencils.

The challenge asked pupils to think commercially about something familiar: how the character of a place, and the stories attached to it, can become the basis for something new.