A team of entrepreneurial Kimbolton students are currently heading the leaderboard of the national Tycoon enterprise competition 2019-20.

In our school’s first year of entering the competition, team ‘NALU’ are already showing a £140 profit since trading began last month. The group of six business-minded Lower Sixth Formers are selling t-shirts to raise awareness of environmental issues. Team member Oliver Greenhow said: “Our business is called ‘NALU’, which means 'wave' in Hawaiian, and our slogan is 'Wave goodbye to plastic'. We use our T-shirts to create awareness of environmental concerns, including plastic pollution, and are donating 10% of our profits to an ocean clean-up charity.”

Tycoon is a unique competition for students aged 6-18 developed by Peter Jones CBE - a familiar face from BBC Dragons’ Den. Each participating team writes a business plan, is lent money (repayable when the company breaks even), starts a business and competes with other student companies across the UK.

Kimbolton has a total of five teams in this year’s Tycoon 2K competition for Sixth Form students aged 16-18: Nalu, Branching Blossom Jewellery, Shota & co, Mirror, Mirror and Names & Frames. They will all be trading until the end of term - look out for them at local events including the KSPA Christmas Fair on Sunday 1 December, 10.30am-3pm.

Head of Business Studies, Mr Jon Saunders, said: “All of our teams have shown great entrepreneurial skills in successfully pitching their business ideas. The competition is a great opportunity for students to bring their classroom learning to life and engage in real-world business practice.”