A new enterprise programme designed to give students the commercial edge has been given the thumbs up by trainee hairdressers. Get the Idea, the learning programme the IOEE has developed in collaboration with global hair stylists TONI&GUY, was piloted at City of Wolverhampton College.

‘Get the Idea’ is an innovative new programme designed to help learners undertaking vocational qualifications to develop their enterprise skills alongside their core trade. The idea is that colleges and universities will be able to use the programme as a complimentary strand of enterprise learning that will enhance students’ chances of success either as self-employed people or as entrepreneurial employees.

Sue Cole, the Work-based Learning Manager for hairdressing at City of Wolverhampton College, said:

“I was invited to get involved when hairdressing was chosen as the pilot. The programme seemed to fit really well with what we already offered and gave students the entrepreneurial skills they needed to sit alongside their skills as stylists.”

‘Get the Idea’ has been carefully designed to help young learners really consider entrepreneurial endeavour from a new point of view, expanding their thinking around what it can mean and enterprising activity they may engage in.

Sue added: “Some of our students aim is to open their own businesses and they immediately think of a salon. The T&G pilot has helped them understand that even just having a column [a chair in a salon] can be a small business within a salon.”

“The programme has enabled students to think of the chair they will one day run within a salon in entrepreneurial terms. They were encouraged to consider ways of growing their clientele base and thinking about how to market themselves within that salon business they’re part of. This way of thinking wasn’t covered by the NVQ – it simply wasn’t giving them those enterprise skills.”

Although in previous years City of Wolverhampton College has seen many hairdressing students go on to open their own successful salons, those young people usually had to go elsewhere to develop their understanding of enterprise. Now, students can gain both the hands-on practical hairstyling skills and the business mind-set in one place. Importantly, the skills taught on the ‘Get the Idea’ programme, are in no way limited to the world of hairdressing.

Sue explains: “The content of the programme itself is quite generic; although our learning materials were tailored around hairdressing, the general ideas could be applied in any subject area.”

Twenty-four-year-old Hanna Jones obtained her Level 3 Diploma in Hairdressing in July from the college, making her one of the first students to take the ‘Get the Idea’ programme. Hannah, who now works at the college’s hairdressing academy as a graduate stylist said:

“The programme was really good. I took a lot of information from it on how to manage my own salon one day. It was definitely different from what we’d learnt before – it told you about the business side and made you think of the future in a different way.”
Hanna found that the programme presented her with eye-opening information about self-employment and running her own business.

She added: “The reality of opening your own business can be quite tough. You have legal issues to consider, making sure you’ve everything you need and making sure you’re working to the best standards. I really enjoyed the ‘Get the Idea’ part of the course. It was nice to plan your future salon and open your mind creatively. It made you think about how you would like your business to be, how you would like it to be run and what kind of services you would provide.”

This positive response is representative of the general student feeling about the programme, which the college hopes to continue offering.

Sue added: “The feedback from the learners has been excellent and the attendance was good so our plan is certainly to run the programme again. The students were engaged with the T&G element and found it rewarding to explore topics like salon names, how they’d want their businesses to look and whether they’d be sole traders or part of a franchise. Some young people had lots of ideas and the programme helped them to tailor their ideas and plan short term and long term targets, which is a good approach to enterprise.

“From my point of view, it’s a good course for everyone to do alongside their basic vocational qualification because it gets them thinking about what they actually want to do and helps them nurture their entrepreneurial skills for the future.”