Our "Believe and Achieve" Day began with an opening ceremony to which all the businesses involved, parents, governors and carers were invited. Mark Erndon from Expo Chef and Dave Spensely provided everyone with a short, light hearted quiz about people who have been inspirational in their lives- despite being told they wouldn't succeed.

St Francis' School wants to encourage every child to "Believe and Achieve" in everything that they do- the day was a way of helping them and their parents and carers see the opportunites that could be open to them in the future. We opened our doors to employers from around the region today.

Children and their families visited 14 employers over the course of the day, and by lunch time many children were already beginning to realise that there are many opportunities in the world for them. Archy could not contain himself by lunchtime declaring to everyone "I have loved everything and think I would be happy working for any of the companies. But my favourite is Stillers. I love trucks and engines and would love to fix the trucks and calculate the mpg of the different vehicles to make them money."

Meanwhile Jack told me "I have learnt that for different jobs you need different degrees. I've learnt that for Aycliffe fabrications you need an engineering degree. I am already good at maths so I now need to keep getting better at maths so I can get an engineering degree."

Latana finished the day saying "I have learnt lots of new skills about different workplaces and it has been a really good day."

Geoff Nicholson attended the event to teach children about empowering themselves to achieve. He is an entrepreneur and has his own international life coaching company. "Today has been absolutely fantastic, it has been brilliant, the children have been really involved and have really been getting into the theme of 'Believe and Achieve.' It's great to get the opportunity to teach the children these skills and to help them believe in their own ability for the future."

Paul Stiller added "We've had a great time, it's actually the first time we have ever t akenpart in something like this but I have been very surprised at the response from the children and
how well informed they are. They have obviously done quite a bit of research on my company. I have tried this morning to impress upon the children the importance of teamwork in business and working well with others to form a good company. I think the children have responded very well to that."

We would like to thank again: