Pupils Profit story
Founded about a decade ago by Elizabeth Gimblett, Pupils Profit offer programmes for KS2 students where they set up and operate either a Healthy Tuck Shop or Eco Refill across the school year. The Healthy Tuck Shop drives up children’s intake of their ‘five-a-day’, helping healthy choices to become healthy habits, and the Eco Refill Shop reduces plastic waste and promotes re-use to children and parents. The Healthy Tuck Shop snacks are fully within the Children’s Food Trust guidelines and, based on the children’s tuck shop sales, these healthy choices have proven to be extremely popular with classmates!
The programme offers an affordable range of products to sell, as well as simple Enterprise Training Toolkits to help the children set up their businesses and give them a system to work to.
There are now around 80 schools across Britain involved with Pupils Profit, including in the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, Greater Manchester, London and in many coastal communities.
To hear more about Pupils Profit, listen to the Carbon Copy Podcast Running Out of Time special episode featuring this initiative.
Useful learnings from Pupils Profit
The children running the enterprises gain a sense of responsibility and achievement from operating their school shop. It is a fun way to learn, bringing maths to life and developing numerous PSHE-related objectives, from confidence and team-working to understanding of career choices. At the same time, classmates are making healthy food choices, purchasing eco-friendly products and reducing waste.
The Department for Education has set a target for all education settings to have a sustainability lead and a climate action plan in place by 2025, to help embed sustainability in all they do. An initiative like Pupils Profit helps children to engage with lots of the issues that schools are asked to focus on in these plans, including reducing carbon emissions and developing green skills.
Pupils Profit metrics
Number of schools that operate their own Healthy Tuck Shop or Eco Refill Shop.
Number of plastic containers saved from waste.
