June 2008

STOP PRESS! It's official! A Dragon is coming to school. Don't be alarmed, this one doesn't breathe out fire - we hope! This Dragon is Peter Jones who is visiting our school on the 4th July!

• Three students from Manchester Academy Confidential will be making a sales pitch to him for funding for a glossy feature magazine called Academy Confidential Review. This publication will feature the best of Academy Confidential past articles and more besides.
  
  This is a fantastic opportunity for those who are taking part as they will be able to keep a copy of the publications for future careers in media and as a keepsake for all their hard work.

• For those of you who may have been living on an isolated island for ten years, Peter Jones is a judge on the BBC TV programme Dragon's Den. He is a perfect example of a self-made man, beginning his entrepreneurial (that's business) journey at the age of sixteen when he founded a tennis academy.
  
  Throughout his life he worked for and ran different business, winning many national awards, including Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2001. Now, in his early forties, Peter is considered to be one of the UK's leading businessmen. 
  
  Peter Jones' business team have already visited the school to arrange the fine details of the visit. By all accounts Peter is very excited at the prospect of visiting us and hearing the pitches from our own budding entrepreneurs.

• It gets even better. As well as Peter Jones, GMTV are also visiting the school to film the students involved in the many enterprise projects that are up and running. They are coming because Manchester Academy is an enterprise school with a national and international reputation.
  
  There is also a possibility that Kelly Holmes, the athlete, will be visiting: this is yet to be confirmed. Watch this space!

Charlotte M.