By Michelle Crean

A 12-year-old's business idea was a winner in this year's Junior Entrepreneur Programme (JEP) as she scooped the Bright Spark Award.

TROPHY: Sadbh O’Halloran Kilcummin National School was also awarded the joint Garda Blitz Player of the Tournament trophy last week.

MENTOR: Teacher Mike Murphy from Kilcummin National School whose class participated in JEP 2022.

Sixth Class pupil Sadbh O’Halloran (12), who has just finished in Kilcummin National School, came up with the Pebble Art project.

Sadbh creates beautiful, original pieces of art using pebbles and other natural materials and gives her unique pieces as gifts to family and friends for special occasions. The Bright Spark award recognises the creativity of individual pupils who pitch novel ideas at the idea generation stage of JEP.

Nine thousand children from three hundred schools nationally launched start-up businesses while still in primary school. During the 12th year of the Junior Entrepreneur Programme (JEP) they experienced what it’s like to be a start-up entrepreneur, doing market research and agonising over their final business plan before investing their own cash and putting their business in motion. The pupils combined their innate creativity with the skills they developed on the programme to create original products and launch businesses ranging from board games to storybooks to high-end craft and educational products.

"We are very proud of all her achievements and we wish her well as she starts the next chapter in her education at secondary school," Principal of Kilcummin NS Gillian Sheehan told the Killarney Advertiser.

"We will miss Sadbh and we look forward to hearing about the very bright future that lies ahead of this 'Bright Spark'!

Brilliant Beads was another successful project, undertaken by Mr Murphy’s Fifth and Sixth Class and SNA, Margaret Nagle O’ Neil. The children designed and created customised bracelets, as their JEP business idea.

Sadbh was also separately awarded the joint Garda Blitz Player of the Tournament trophy, a great achievement as this is the first time that the award was presented to female players.