PopUp

The PopUp Digital Agency captures the energy of the digital revolution that is sweeping the globe. It brings industry trainers, work experience and digital skills into your school or college.

What you get

PopUp bridges the gap between education and employment in the creative and digital sector by using industry trainers to deliver a fun experiential learning programme to students.

30 hours of learning, making, pitching and work experience
Timetabled in collaboration with school
Full day sessions
Industry trainer
Industry tools and techniques
Digital agency environment
Digital Business Product
Graduation with prizes and certificates

The curriculum

Through the use of industry techniques and tools, our curriculum challenges students to develop creative thinking, problem solving, storytelling & business modelling skills.

Creative thinking

Business idea generation

Day 1 is dedicated to unlocking the creative thinking of the group. Through a series of fun activities and industry standard tools such as Brainwriting we show every participant how to come up with a creative business idea.

Market research - test your ideas

You might have a great idea but you then need to make sure there’s a market for it. This is where you test your ideas. There are two methods - primary and secondary research. Primary research sees participants ask their target market directly for their thoughts via a survey. Secondary research done to back-up your thinking is then stored on Wakelet - an online app for managing and storing their information which is then embedded into team’s product website.

Marketing Website & Social Media

One of the most important things for any business is how it’s marketed. Central to this is a website. Each PopUp Digital Agency we create will build their own Wordpress website where they showcase the project work produced over the 5 days.

Business planning

Every business needs a plan. That’s why we work with our groups on developing their business model canvas. A great place to start is Canvaniser - an easy to use tool that can be edited to suit individual business needs.

Project management

The PopUp Digital Agency runs as just that - an Agency working on a project to deadline. For that reason it’s crucial it is managed to ensure all tasks are working to schedule. The Project Manager will use Trello (or sometimes a Kanban Board) to oversee all elements and make sure the Day 5 deadline is met.

Branding and identity

You can have a brilliant product but it’s needs a strong brand identity. The marketing and design sub-team will be charged with creating a brand that reflects the business product and target market. We’ll work with them to prototype designs using Canva to produce a range of early ideas.

Prototyping

Speaking of prototyping, what about the app itself? There’s an easy to use application for smartphones/tablets where the tech team will create a working prototype of their app idea. Not only can this be demonstrated in their video pitch but is a crucial for gaining constructive feedback when speaking to potential users during primary research.

Crowd funding

We’re not only creating projects for the week, but looking for participants to think beyond - what’s next? A popular way for getting businesses off the ground is crowdfunding. As well as Kickstarter, we look at Patreon and Indiegogo amongst others.

Presentation

Video Storyboarding, script writing, audio capture & editing

So you have a great business. Now you need to be able to communicate why it’s the next big thing. As well as the website, participants learn to storyboarding, scriptwriting, recording and editing skills as they create a 3 minute elevator pitch for their product.

"The teaching provided by DA was inspirational, differentiated and well informed. The trainer built a strong, professional and appropriate relationship with each student."

Paul Rogers: North Ridge High School

Take a look at some
amazing student business ideas

We have picked out a selection of projects devised and taken to pitch presentation by schools and colleges across Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Stoke, West Yorkshire, Liverpool and Chesterfield.

Gatsby Benchmarks

PopUp is informed by LMI and has been developed to help schools and colleges meet the Gatsby Benchmarks which are used as a tool by Ofsted inspectors when assessing the careers education information advice and guidance (CEIAG) offer of a given school or college. Here’s how PopUp can help your school.

2. Learning from career & labour market information
PopUp was developed using Labour Market Information and so as well as technical skills and knowledge, also provides participants with insight into the range of roles available; information on routes into and subsequent career progression. Our industry trainers are also able to provide answers on the day to day realities and demands of working in the sector.
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
PopUp welcomes students from all backgrounds and with a range of career goals. So that the project team ticks, we look for students with interests in and/or who show technical, research, marketing and project management/leadership skills. There’s something for every type of student and we continue to respond to that throughout the programme.
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
The programme involves all aspects of project management including business planning, budgeting, research, report writing, script-writing, filming and editing. All of these elements can be taken back to the subject classroom and linked to curriculum so that learning is more relatable and enjoyable for students.
5. Encounters with employers and employees
All PopUp trainers are current practitioners from the creative and digital industry, and so bring their own expertise and insight to the students in a series of meaningful encounters over the 5 days. The programme also lends itself to further external employer support where local businesses tied to the school can be invited in to deliver a masterclass sessions/talk on any range of related topics.
6. Experience of workplaces
PopUp creates an agency environment within a school. The agency takes students out of their school mode - in fact they become employees over the 5 day programme rather than students and experience a real working environment.

Safeguarding

The safety and care of all young people participating in Digital Advantage programmes is very important to us. You can download our full safeguarding policy here.