Wynberg Girls Junior School uses digital innovation to teach entrepreneurship and e-commerce skills

On Friday, 25 September 2020, Wynberg Girls’ Junior School (WGJS) in Cape Town launched its very first e-trading day. Traditionally, every year the Grade 7s learn about entrepreneurship and put together their own entrepreneurship trading day – where each learner is tasked with creating her own business, product, and marketing strategy – culminating in a physical trading day held at school during the third term.

This year – trading day became virtual.

The girls conceptualised their e-commerce businesses, drafted business plans and created unique home-made products, many of which were upcycled. Owing to health and safety protocols, no food or catering items were allowed, and so the girls had to be extra creative in their product development. To market their goods, the girls created video advertisements which were showcased to all parents via the Flipgrid app.

Products were loaded onto the Karri payments app which the school uses for all payments. All learners and their parents were invited to spend some time browsing the e-trading day catalogue between 25 September to 7 October 2020 and to place orders for products they wished to purchase.

Product deliveries will take place once all orders have closed. Careful consideration was given to Covid-19 health and safety protocols when planning the deliveries, which will take place after 19 October.

Entrepreneurial skills are a vital component of developing future leaders and responsible global citizens. Having experienced a global pandemic this year which has forced everyone to think of new and creative ways of doing business – teaching e-commerce skills is a natural progression when we aim to develop 21st-century learners.

To take a look at how WGJS created its e-trading day, watch the short video here: