A t-shirt company founded with a tiny $20 budget is giving new focus to a group of students at the Berry Street School.

They are students who have come to Berry Street having become disengaged from mainstream schooling, so the fact they are more motivated to work on their company The T-Shirt Boss than their regular classes is a welcome problem for teaching staff.

Students Toby, Eloise, Brodie, Laura, Alix and Jai, aged 12 to 15, have thrown themselves in to The T-Shirt Boss since teacher Samantha Walkerden suggested they take part in the $20 Boss program.

Their school attendance is up as they work together to run a company which has so far sold about 30 t-shirts to buyers as far away as Griffith in NSW.

Each team member has their own role in the company which they are responsible for, which plays to their personal strengths.

“Students are in control of the design, production and distribution of the t-shirts. They are taking the process very seriously; each student has a designated role within the company and they are all working extremely hard,” Ms Walkerden said.

THE TEAM

Toby, who has dyslexia, is head of design taking advantage of his love of drawing. “Literacy is hard work for him, but he excels at anything artistic, so he was a natural choice for head of design. His illustration is on all of our t-shirts and tags,” the students wrote in their company profile.

Eloise is head of finance, using her excellent memory and knack of keeping track of things to keep the business’s bank account and receipts in order.

Brodie, who loves talking to people, is in charge of local advertising, posters and flyers and is perfect for the role of spokesperson.

Laura is a computer whiz so her role is head of IT and online marketing – taking charge of the website, Instagram and online payment system.

Alix has an eye for detail and is excellent at making sure shirts are packaged in the right way and sent to the right places, making the job of head head of shipping and ordering ideal for her. She enjoys aesthetics and puts together a great display.

Jai’s role is head of customer relations, tapping in to his problem solving skills and confidence in talking to people. “He will make sure you get the right shirt, in the right size and of the highest quality. He deals with customer complaints, but thankfully we don’t have a lot of these,” they wrote.

And supporting the team with advice and administration support are Ms Walkerden and fellow teacher Pete Walker.

THE COMPANY

About 30 orders for T-Shirts have been packed and shipped from Berry Street and each new order is cause for celebration, whether it comes online through the website or a result of the advertising placed around the school and the wider community.

“Sam our teacher told us about this project called $20 Boss and we decided to make a t-shirt business and website,” Laura said. “It was always going to be a t-shirt company and it started off from looking at Toby’s designs then we looked to see which we liked best,” she said.

“We decided black, red and white should be our colours because that’s the colour of the $20 Boss program,” Brodie added.

Mr Walker said each team member took their job very seriously. “We started with making everyone a role so they knew what they had to do, their tasks, and at the end of the day they all give each other an update and explain where they are at,” he said.

With their first orders well-received, the team have ambitions to expand in to coloured t-shirts and dog t-shirts – the latter in honour of the school’s therapy dog Phoebe, a golden retriever who provides support and comfort to the students.

The Foundation for Young Australians run the $20 Boss Program to encourage entrepreneurship among school students. Teams create a business of their own with start-up capital of $20 each.

Normally the FYA provide the initial $20 investment, but with funding already allocated for the year teacher Samantha Walkerden funded the project out of her own pocket because she could see the value and potential for the Berry Street students.

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With their $20 budget the team have had to dig deep in to their own skills and branch out to find community support for the project – something that does not come naturally to these students.

With support from their teachers the students negotiated with Ross and Glenn from Ballarat’s No Bull Printing who agreed to print the shirts for the fledgling business.

THE EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES

Engagement is one of the key goals for the Berry Street School, which caters to students who have experienced extreme trauma in their lives and who cannot achieve success in a mainstream school setting.

And with this project not only have engagement levels soared, but students are developing valuable life skills in addition to learning outcomes.

“With our T-Shirt Boss company they’re learning essential literacy, numeracy and socio-emotional skills by completing a project with a real-world application and an audience beyond the classroom. Educational research suggests that learning in context with an application beyond the classroom is the best way to learn,” Ms Walkerden said.

The business model focuses on each students’ strength, with a focus on cooperation and teamwork.

These are students who have had a rough time in life and their educational journey, with many getting to high school age without the educational and life skills that most of their peers have.

“All of educational research tells us that having a real world audience outside the classroom and external links makes learning more meaningful,” Ms Walkerden said.

Ms Walkerden said there was a lot of literacy-based learning and honing of communication skills within the group and externally.

“Then there’s been negotiation about colours and designs, learning you don’t always get what you want, and even something as simple as dealing with frustration if the wifi doesn’t work one day and you have to work around it,” Mr Walker said.

“And they have to speak to each other and keep track of the project – things that disorganised brain development makes it difficult to do.

“These kids are serious about the project. The fact they get to experience success and see how things come together … in the past some of these kids have been promised the world and never got it.”

Teachers at Berry Street often teach more than the curriculum, having to explicitly teach different life skills that their charges may have missed out on during their development.

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“Even something as simple as talking on the phone, we go through that,” Mr Walker said.

What is exciting for the students is having the actual shirt and making actual money.

“They are seeing this project through to fruition, and they may never have got to feel the full success of anything before,” he said.

You can get your T-Shirt Boss t-shirt at www.thet-shirtboss.com.

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