Young people need to learn entrepreneurship as part of mainstream education.
MBA. MTeach. A decade in school middle leadership. Now teaching entrepreneurship, and building the qualification I think should already exist.
The case
Entrepreneurship:
The pursuit of an opportunity with the resources you have available.
This is a skill students need to develop and learn. Not just to start a business, but to have economic agency.
1.01 million 16 to 24 year olds in the UK are not in education, employment or training, the highest figure since 2013. Sixty-one per cent of them aren't unemployed. They're economically inactive.
(Source: House of Commons Library, June 2026)
That's not a knowledge problem. Schools are good at producing students who can recite, analyse and pass an exam. What they're not built to produce is students who can act: spot a real problem, test an idea against it, and see something through.
Knowledge-rich, skills-poor. That's the gap. And the missing piece underneath it isn't a skill at all, it's agency.
This is what entrepreneurship education can actually do, properly taught. Not a bolt-on enterprise day. A structured place to build the one capability the data says is missing.
The proof
The Easter 2026 Bootcamp was the proof of concept: real businesses, real problems, no simulation.
Local Business
Winn Hall, a local parish hall, took students on as a genuine client. Their recommendations on wedding marketing and branding were implemented within three weeks, evidence the work held up outside the classroom, not just inside it.
Local Business
Studio 142, a local barber shop, gave students a live brief. The TikTok video they created brought a genuine walk-in customer through the door.
Student Success
One student used the networking skills he built during the week to independently secure a second work placement, at Thorpe Park, entirely on his own initiative. Evidence of transferred agency, not just a week of taught content.
Unprompted Testimonial
Professor David Airey, Emeritus Professor at the University of Surrey Business School, took part as a business client. He was moved enough by what he saw to write, unprompted, to my Principal in praise of the programme.
The ambition
The bootcamps are the proof of concept. The bigger goal is a national, Ofqual-recognised entrepreneurship qualification, sitting alongside A Levels and BTECs, carrying UCAS points.
It's built on three things a student has to actually do, not just write about: know themselves, using the Ikigai framework, what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, what it will pay for; identify a real customer need; and build something and sell it. A validated need. An MVP. A real sale to a real stranger.
Assessment can't just be an essay. A portfolio can be AI-assisted. A viva can't. So the qualification is built around a portfolio a student develops throughout, defended in a short conversation with a real assessor, the same way you'd defend a dissertation. That's the actual answer to the question everyone in education is currently asking about AI and assessment integrity.
The V Levels reform, launching in 2027, is the policy window this is aimed at. Wherever it ultimately lands, the ambition stays the same: a qualification that proves a student knows themselves, has found a real customer need, and has made something people were willing to pay for.