The National Progression Award (NPA) Jewellery programme at City of Glasgow College includes an enterprise activity where pupils design and produce jewellery for a Christmas sale. Delivered to a cohort of around 16 Senior Phase learners, the project combines jewellery making with practical enterprise experience. Pupils design, price, package and sell their work, then collectively decide how profits will be used, linking creative practice with value creation and social impact.
Context and Rationale
Jewellery education within the Senior Phase aims to develop creative confidence, craft skills and an understanding of the wider creative industries. This project was introduced to make learning more authentic by connecting classroom work to real audiences and outcomes.
Alongside building technical jewellery-making skills, pupils gain early experience of enterprise by producing work for a market and considering customer preferences, quality and presentation. Entrepreneurial skills are particularly relevant for learners who may progress to further education, apprenticeships or self-employment within creative sectors. The activity also encourages pupil voice and agency by enabling students to collectively decide how the profits from their sales will be used, reinforcing the social value of enterprise.
The Learning Activity
The Christmas jewellery-making project is embedded within the NPA Jewellery programme as an extension of the assessed practical units.
Pupils first complete the required unit outcomes by designing and producing jewellery pieces that demonstrate core making processes such as sawing, forming, filing, soldering, texturing and surface finishing. Once these technical skills are established, pupils apply them to develop a small jewellery collection for sale.
Students begin by exploring design themes, market trends and customer preferences. They produce prototypes to test their ideas and consider how designs can be produced efficiently while maintaining creativity and craftsmanship. Class discussions focus on pricing, production time and product appeal, helping pupils balance creative ideas with practical making constraints.
Teaching combines demonstrations, technical workshops, peer critique and structured reflection. Pupils are encouraged to solve problems independently, adapt designs when challenges arise and improve the professional quality of their finished work through iterative making.
The entrepreneurial element includes costing materials, calculating pricing, developing simple branding or packaging and preparing products for sale at the school Christmas event. After the sale, pupils review the outcomes and collectively decide how profits should be used, selecting a cause or initiative that matters to them.
Skills and Capabilities Developed
The project develops entrepreneurial capability through a practical experience of creating products for a real audience.
Pupils build opportunity recognition by identifying jewellery products that are both appealing to customers and achievable within the timeframe. Problem-solving skills develop as learners respond to technical challenges, time pressures and design refinement.
Creativity is strengthened through sketching, prototyping and peer critique sessions, encouraging pupils to generate and improve ideas. The project also builds commercial awareness, as pupils consider material costs, profit margins, pricing strategies and product presentation.
Communication skills grow as students discuss design ideas, share progress and help promote the sale event. Through managing production challenges and presenting their finished work to customers, pupils also develop confidence and resilience. Finally, deciding collectively how profits are used encourages ethical thinking and shared responsibility within an enterprise context.
Impact and Outcomes
The project helps pupils understand that jewellery making can extend beyond creative expression to include entrepreneurship and value creation. Producing work for sale encourages greater care in finishing and presentation, as pupils recognise how quality influences customer interest.
Students also develop employability skills including teamwork, communication and professional awareness. Working together to plan a collection, set price points and prepare products for sale provides an authentic experience of collaborative enterprise.
Outputs include a small jewellery range, packaged products ready for sale and a real enterprise experience where pupils track profits and reflect on outcomes. The activity also strengthens the NPA programme by embedding enterprise thinking within practical craft learning.
Student Feedback
“I didn’t realise there was so much to think about like pricing and making it look professional. It was actually fun working as a group to get everything ready and seeing people buy what we made.”