Melton Vale Post 16 Centre hosts business festival for Leicestershire college students

Six Leicestershire and Rutland school teams learning French and Spanish were paired up with six Leicestershire businesses to produce a short marketing video in their respective foreign language.

Each business already has international connections and brought in props and information to share with the students.

The day was organised by Business Language Champions which aims to bring businesses and schools together to promote language, learning and cultural understanding.

The festival showed students what opportunities are opened up to them in their careers if you have another language.

Students were given a talk by Suzannah Hutton of the Department of International Trade covering tips on avoiding the pitfalls of marketing your product overseas. The teenagers also watched a tutorial by the Young Film Academy on how to produce a professional-looking film.

Year 10 students from Fullhurst Community College were teamed with Ben Swain and Colby Williams from KS Composites in Long Clawson to promote their up-market car parts.

Year 11 and 12 students from De Lisle College were teamed up with Martin Fagan from Community Heartbeat Trust to promote public defibrillator schemes.

Year 11 students from Uppingham Community College were teamed up with Harriet Greenwood of Mars Food UK to promote Dolmio sauces.

Year 12 students from MV16 French were teamed with Elaine Vandelli of Hi2 Events to promote motivational business tours to Verona.

Year 10 students from Oakham School were teamed with Jasmine Jefferies from Long Clawson Dairy to promote Stilton cheese.

Year 12 students from MV16 Spanish were teamed with Yvonne Cornejo from Loughborough University to promote the new language centre to overseas students.

The winning team was De Lisle College and the runners up were MV16 Spanish.

Martin Fagan, who worked with the winning team, said: “Events like this show the talents of our teenagers. All found it a valuable experience.”