SEVENTY students aged 12-15 from five secondary schools took part in a Premier League Enterprise celebration at the Amex.

The event forms part of a national programme jointly funded by the Premier League and Sport Relief.

It is delivered locally by Albion in the Community, the official charity of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, with additional funding and volunteer support from American Express.

The Premier League Enterprise programme focuses on the day-to-day operations of professional football clubs to engage and inspire students in enterprise education.

Areas covered include the fan experience, financial matters, attracting customers and managing the business.

Over the ten-week programme, students have taken part in activities based around commercial operations of BHAFC.

This helps them develop essential enterprise and employability skills such as confidence, initiative, problem solving, resilience and team work.

The celebration event provided an opportunity for students to reflect on their learnings and for team and individual achievements to be recognised.

As part of the day, students worked on a challenge in small groups, tasked with developing a new app (or the existing BHAFC app) to raise the profile and/or attendance of Brighton and Hove Albion’s FA Women’s Super League matches in the 2018/19 season.

They presented their ideas to a panel of judges from BHAFC, American Express and The Argus.

Teams were assessed on confidence, product concept, app features and how ideas linked to the challenge objective.

The judges were impressed by the range of ideas which included: player profiles, videos, match highlights, quizzes, merchandise/ticket offers and interactive elements such as group chats, a Q&A area and score predictors.

Medals were awarded to a winning team from Varndean, selected by judges for their well-constructed ideas, excellent artwork and the fact that all students contributed to the presentation.

Teams from Longhill and The Regis were awarded second and third places.

Beverly Sawyers, Vice President at American Express, said: “This is an innovative programme that uses the power of football to encourage young people to take an interest in the world of work.

“It’s great to see how engaged and creative the students have been.

“They all deserve recognition for their enthusiasm and input not only at this session but throughout the programme.”

Paul Williams, AITC’s schools manager, said: “It was fantastic to see how our students have progressed since the start of the programme and we were incredibly impressed by their ideas.

“Having volunteers from the club and American Express on hand to provide support and insight was an added bonus and something I know the students appreciated.”

The schools were Longhill High School, Brighton, Varndean School, Brighton, Felpham Community College, Bognor Regis, The Regis School, Bognor Regis and The Littlehampton Academy.

Albion in the Community is the official charity of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club.

In the last 12 months AITC has worked with more than 30,000 people in Sussex and delivers 60 different projects and programmes.

Through the power of football and the brand of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, AITC is committed to delivering high-quality, accessible opportunities that improve the health and wellbeing, education and aspirations of its community.