STARTING businesses while they’re young, students at Hawkesbury High School demonstrated their plans and business models at the school’s annual trade fair on Friday.
Ideas, ranging from fresh fruit to odd socks, had to meet strict profit and loss rules, as if they were genuinely competing in the marketplace.
Windsor High School year 10 students Rhiannon Williams and Nathan Walker, said their team decided that oddness was a good business strategy.
Rhiannon said it was more fun than ordinary school work.
‘‘I did things I like, such as designing the poster and sales and marketing,’’ she said. ‘‘Our slogan is: ‘Don’t blend in, be odd.’
‘‘We can do anything with odd socks.’’
Nathan said odd socks need not be mismatching, just unique.
‘‘Wear your favourite character from your favourite movie on your socks,’’ he said. ‘‘With us, you could hold your phone or your keys in your socks.’’
Opposite the Odd Socks stall, creators of Fruitalicious were plying their wares.
Hawkesbury High year 10 students, Brooke Ingram, Monique Meechan, Kara Benson, Jamin Mackintosh and Tristan Fitton marketed blended fresh fruit drinks.
‘‘Everyone’s interested in being healthy and it’s fun to be healthy,’’ Brooke said.
Jamin said they had bought the fruit only that morning.
‘‘You can make your own fresh fruit drinks from this, if you want; pears, strawberries, watermelon and so on,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s no added sugar and you don’t get that acidy taste you get from most other fruit drinks.’’
Other stalls were marketing different types of products, such as old fashioned confectionary and even candles, with customers lured by the presence of chocolate and other sweets.
Loan Market’s Martin Beanland, representing Hawkesbury Chamber of Commerce, said he was impressed by the students.
‘‘This exposes the students to business and gives them a real world experience,’’ Mr Beanland said.
‘‘They become managers with staff, dealing with scenarios where they could borrow money, pay dividends and make decisions.’’
Hawkesbury High maths teacher Tracy Haw advised students how they could best manage the finances.
‘‘I’ve talked them through numbers in terms of financial statements, tax and other factors in business,’’ Miss Haw said.
‘‘Being able to work in a team is also being learned.’’
Hawkesbury High’s careers adviser Marguerite Hernage said the fact other high schools were interested in the trade fair demonstrated its success.
