Enterprising Students Plan for Business

Year 8 students Ruby Devey, Gugandeep Dhaliwal, Shujaa Khan, Callum Collins, Harley Sanderson, Anum Parekh, Nana Daffour, Aalyiyah Ansar,Harvenn Kaur, Tharshana Sureshkumar and Kyle Scalise spent a day at Royal Sun Alliance Insurance in Birmingham to learn about how banks finance small businesses and put together business plans for start-up businesses.

The key enterprise skills students were focusing on were: Leadership, Presenting and Team Work. RSA Insurance is one of the world’s leading multi-national companies providing insurance and risk management for businesses and individuals across the globe.

Before starting the business plans, students, in teams, had to consider careers in finance. To guide them, students had a tour of the office and an opportunity to interview RSA volunteers to discover the variety of job roles at RSA. 

For the business plan, students had to outline their business idea, give two business goals and describe how they would use the start-up loan of £10000 to help achieve their original business goals. The business start-up ideas were a café, a delivery service, a shop aimed at teenagers and eco-friendly beauty products. 

 

 

Students had to present their business plan to a panel of judges from RSA. They had to introduce their business and analyse how the first year went. Then they went on to discuss how they overcame any set back and finally discuss what skills they have learnt which are important to a start-up business.

After a very difficult decision, the panel of judges awarded the café as the best business idea because:

"The group developed as a team. They had progressed from being very quiet, to giving a very professional presentation. There was excellent evidence of research skills being used and the team also demonstrated good communication skills" D Hemming, Midland Regional Manager – Commercial Risk Solutions RSA Insurance 

Aaliyah added "After going to RSA Insurance I have learnt that in business you have to negotiate and challenge ideas so that you can come up with a better plan. I enjoyed the trip, it was very helpful for when I study business at KS4.Thank you EE and everyone at RSA for making us feel welcome". 

Mrs Petrak, Leader of Enterprise