Getting down to business

Year 9 students got some insider information on setting up and running a business as a Young Enterprise initiative took place at Brooke Weston. Students formed rival 'companies', discussed marketing and employment strategies before share trading to see which was the most profitable.

The scheme ran for three days meaning that each tutor group had a day of tuition and advice from Robin Neighbour, development manager for Young Enterprise East Midlands. Experts were also on hand from local employer, RS Components and they gave advice and answered questions about life at the cutting edge of commerce.

Robin said: 'The idea is to give students a concept about business. We give them some problems, some environmental issues, a job description and posters and then they've got to do a presentation as a result of each of the different sessions that they go through. They will start trading shares within the different companies – everybody has £50 to spend and each share is worth £10.'

Ciaran Maher, Diane West and Patrick Dale, who are in the Operations, Training and Sales departments of RS Components took part in the question and answer sessions and were impressed with the ideas and strategies the students came up with.

Diane said: 'I just like the buzz of working with the students and I've learned quite a bit by working with Young Enterprise as well. The students will say what they mean and you're put on the spot quite often! They are working well within their teams and some of the posters that I've looked at so far look really good so we're going to be hard pushed to choose a winner!'

Business teacher, Rachel Kay said: 'This is the first year this has been run and the students are definitely getting a lot out of this project; it's been very successful.'