Course content
Main Lesson where Class 9 pupils start their own craft business, being proactive in learning the skills necessary to launch and run a successful enterprise.
Course Content
Throughout the Main Lesson, Class 9 explore the four P’s:
- Products: gaining valuable insights into choosing the right craft for selling online
- Photographs: understanding their importance, as well as how to design a shoot with props, lighting and editing, specifically for e-commerce platforms like Etsy and social media, such as Instagram.
- Packaging: posting products as well as selling at the annual Spring Fair, the appropriate eco way to deliver the product is looked at.
- Price – ensuring maximum profit within a UK, handmade, ethical market.
- All
- Crafts & Business Studies Main Lesson
- 2024
- 2023
Straddling the digital & physical
iGen pupils of Class 9 create three products perceptible by touch, learning to make, photograph, and market them online, proactively learning the skills necessary to launch and run a successful crafts enterprise.
Logo
Class 9’s company logo (2024). Honeysuckle is the Class cohort’s name at Edinburgh Steiner School. Adding ‘Eco handcraft’ embeds what the young entrepreneurs are offering into its branding.
Photography
Around 96% of 12- to 15-year-olds have a mobile phone, most with an inbuilt camera; and often with wifi access. Visual marketing, using props, lighting and editing are explored, using the mobile phone and Photoshop tools.
Instagram post
Social media is utilised to launch Honeysuckle Eco Handcraft, featuring one of the three products, the felted flower bunting. Post designed to Insta’s dimensions, with short caption and hashtags (post). 90-day campaign aims to attract 1,000 likes.
Etsy Seller Profile
Photographs, description using keywords and prices are incorporated to design an online shop. Above: One of the three products in 2024, ‘Bunny Bunting’. View also on Honeysuckle’s own Class seller interface: Honeysuckle
Resource of time
Investigating price point and the value of their time, pupils figured out one wee felt ball took 1/2 hour to make. Sourced made, assembly time was reduced significantly, whilst the product also legitimately remained ‘handmade’.
Promotional Video
With both organic and sponsored videos performing better in regards to user engagement than their image counterparts on the strongly visual social media platform, Instagram, the pupils created a 24-second video to compliment the marketing campaign. Watch
Practical process
Starting with the raw material of merino wool, the pupils hand-make each product. Above: Felted soap provides bathroom decor, whilst making the soap last longer and gives a more effective wash. Fragranced with tea tree oil.
Packaging
What is sustainable packaging? Pupils explore the options that have minimal impact on our environment, are typically made from recycled or natural materials, or can be reused, recycled or composted.
Needle felting
Needle felting is a therapeutic and versatile craft that allows the pupils to create any number of shapes and designs. Above: Hanging Octopus Light. The final product is made by using various and complicated felted techniques. The final product is dreamy and beautiful, diffusing an LED light through the opaque structure to set a night-time room.
Physical, virual and social tools
Pupils grasp using a sharp felting tool to create intricate aesthetic designs such as the tumble dryer baaaaaalls that are natural, reusable and chemical-free (above) and their camera phones to capture the images; digital tools such as AI, Photoshop, social media and ecommerce platforms; as well as social tools, engaging face-to-face with customers on their stall at the Spring Fair.
In school newsletter
Editorial feature in the School’s weekly ezine, with over a thousand subscribers with links to the Steiner Waldorf school in Edinburgh:
News: Crafts & Business Studies: Empowering teenagers beyond being the product online (2024)
News: Main Lesson In Craft: Tangible To Digital (2023)
The Class learn about the different forms a company can take, and how to market a business on various platforms such as Amazon, Etsy, eBay and Folksy, as well as through socila media platforms like Instagram. They experience the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results in search engines to the platform they set up.
Furthermore, they delve into the technology needed to support their business:
- learning how AI can be harnessed as a tool to make our lives easier, banking time that can be repurposed for the creative process; honing the skills for effective prompting; and reflecting on the importance of integrity when using apps like ChatGPT.
- utilising Erank to maximise the impact of product descriptions and hashtags on SEO ranking, awareness of their company and products, and ultimately driving sales through keywords.
- Incorporating the mobile phone camera and Photoshop to maximise the power of imagery.
- Use graphic design tools, including Canva, to express the brand voice and create marketing assets (a logo etc).
And, of course, the 14- and 15-year-olds learn the practical process: making the products by hand, which are derived from the craft of needle felting, simultaneously exploring the realms of sourcing materials, the processes involved in creating the product and the fine art of how the scarse resource of time is best employed – for profit, wellbeing and with an ethical ethos.
Madame Rachel Craig, Crafts Teacher and Etsy Seller
“The aim of this Main Lesson is to give the tools to pupils to have a successful business online if they one day choose to have one. There is still huge value in using our hands, both economically and for our wellbeing. This education teaches that.”