Fabulous Fundraising - Landmark combined Maths Week England with Children in Need

In Years 7, 8, 9 and 10, the students were set a financial capability project over a two-week period. Each group of three or four students from each year group were given the opportunity to ‘borrow’ £20 from the school funds to plan, buy and make/bake foods/drinks to sell at an International Food festival which was held on 18th November. All profit made from the sale of the foods and drinks went to to Children in Need. Each group tried to maximise their profits for this worthy cause. Here is a description of the process:

Stage 1

Planning and budgeting

Each group decided which recipe(s) they were going to use to create delicious foods to sell. They discussed ideas, researched recipes in books and online. They then used online supermarket prices to calculate the approximate cost of the ingredients to ensure that they kept within their budget.

Stage 2

Purchasing

The next task was for each group in turn, to visit Tesco supermarket, Fulbourn, to buy the ingredients for their recipes with their allocated £20. Each group was given a £20 note to spend. Most of the ingredients were bought on the day, but limited date foods could be bought nearer to 18th November. The students were looking for ‘best’ buys to find the cheapest unit cost prices.

Stage 3

Calculating the unit cost prices/selling prices and predicted profit

In the next maths lesson, the students used their receipts to calculate the total cost of each recipe. They then found the unit costs before deciding on a unit sale price.

Finally, by calculating the possible unit profit, combined with predicting how many goods will be sold, each group had to calculate a predicted profit of all goods sold

Stage 4

Making/Baking

For the homework challenge, the students were asked to create their recipes at home and to bring in their goods for the sale on Friday. They also needed to consider how to advertise their products.

Stage 5

Selling the foods/drinks

Each group set up their stalls, with a ‘float’ of money, ready to sell their goods. On 18th November from 10:30-11:15am the students held their Food and drink festival in the Main Hall.

There was a buzz of excitement as the groups used their wonderful selling techniques to sell their food and drink products to Primary and Secondary students and staff too!

Stage 6

Calculating the profit

The students calculated the total profit made from the sale of their goods by deducting the £20 ‘borrowed’ and the ‘float’ money given by the school (£2.75).

It was wonderful to see that the total raised by the secondary school students from the mathematical project was £269.82, which we are delighted to give to Children in Need.