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Posted on: February 1st 2017
Dragons Den Competition
Dragons Den article - Sanjula Hettiarachchige 9WO
Throughout December the business department held an exhilarating and inspiring competition called, ‘Dragons Den – Health Breakfast Snack’ where every student in year 9 was given the exciting opportunity to become year 9’s best entrepreneurs. Prizes were up for grabs and every one in the year group entered the initial competition. You might have watched the television series of Dragons Den, well if you have you probably know what the competition was all about. If not, I will explain. Each group had to come up with a healthy breakfast snack with a business plan to back it up and to ask for investment to help launch the product. The dragons then get to ask gruelling questions about the business, the plan and the company to decide whether to invest or not, or in our case to rank the teams to find the winning team.
A few weeks prior to the final, which was held on Wednesday 21st December each form in year nine was split into groups of 4 or 5 students and given the challenge of coming up with a breakfast food that is original, unique and most of all healthy.
Our form tutors then selected the top 2 teams per form which were then put through to the business department who selected 6 teams to enter into the final round which was on the final day of the school term.
In my form our group came up with the idea of a healthy breakfast drink, rightfully named ‘Drink Healthy on the Go’ to be aimed at teenagers. This was because most teenagers have a very busy lifestyle, especially in the morning and a drink would
be an efficient way to combat the lack of time. As well as our unique breakfast drink there were many other groups with good ideas such as ‘Crepes’ and ‘healthy cookies’.
A week before the pitch commenced the six finalists were chosen from the
year, our group was gratefully chosen by the business department and hence given a time and location – the library for the all-important presentation. The dragons panel was made up of sixth form students who were dressed proffessionally and had extensive questions and stern faces thorughout the whole process!
It was a very nerve-racking experience waiting our turn to face the dragons! We had practiced and prepped, but we were still unsure about any questoins they might fire at us. On the day we had made a sample of our drink that the dragons would have tried, however just before the presentation we noticed that the drink had gone bad, meaning they couldn’t actually try our product. Many other groups also had samples for their products including crepes and yoghurt drinks so it was unfortunate that the dragons would not be able to taste ours. However, we had a back-up plan, to compensate for the loss of the sample we would immediately make a stunning poster to wow the Dragons. And it worked!
The pitch went smoothly, however the dragons were intense with their questions and 
we faced some really tough questions, at some points during the questioning process some of us were lost for words! However we helped each other and overcame the challenge. One of my group members said “I will never forget this moment, can’t even imagine how the real entrepreneurs do this in front of the real Dragons.” Overall it was an excellent experience and we are so excited to hear the final result!
Miss Watson: Firstly I would like to say well done to every group that entered the
competition. The standard of entries was extremely high and I know form tutors struggled to enter only 2 groups from each form. I was privileged to be able to watch the final round of the dragons den competition. The sixth formers made excellent dragons!! They were professional and asked really gruelling questions to the students about their business and product – I wouldn’t have liked to have been under fire from them! I was really impressed with all the finalists products, espcially those groups who made their product for the dragons to try and the teams who had gone to the effort of making a website and video advert – the standards of
entry were extremely high!
1st place: Crepe - The idea of the product is very reasonable and practical. They had good alternatives to adapt.
2nd Place - Juicy bits - they were very well organised. They were spontaneous about their marketing and launching.
3rd Place - Vegan balance - Very creative product and they were consistent.
Star performers:
Jalaal Muawd 9AS - Very spontaneous with answering questions from the dragons and a great team player.
Sanjula Hettiarachchige 9WO- He was very passionate about his product and his team while answering questions. A clear leader who made sure individuals were credited for their participation in the group.
Niruban Aravinthan 9DA - Very creative use of ICT technical skills.
