Start Up Programme

Purpose and process

To give students real experience and understanding of the world of business in terms of: coming up with a business concept; creating and researching a business plan; taking responsibility and being accountable to their shareholders for the running of the company. To help develop attitudes and skills necessary for personal success, and employability, plus an insight into self-employment, business creation, risk taking and coping with adversity.

 

Learning outcomes

Students can learn to:

• Develop enterprising skills, attitudes and behaviours including:
• creative thinking and problem solving;
• communication and presentation skills;
• confidence and a can-do attitude;
• teamwork and leadership;
• negotiation and decision making;
• setting goals and time management;
• managing risk and responding to change;
• Raise finance for their venture by selling shares
• Open and manage their own business bank account
• Carry out market research
• Work together to create their business plan
• Develop their own product or service
• Market and promote their product or service
• Trade with the public
• Manage their company finances
• Compete with other schools in national and European competitions

Curricular or thematic relevance

The 10 stages of setting up, running and liquidating a company could be a standalone enterprise activity or incorporated into a specific curriculum subject such as Business or Economics. It is a common interest to fit the programme into the national learning outcomes.

The Start Up Programme is implemented in 17 countries in Europe and in 8 of them it is accredited by education authorities for teaching within the school curriculum. The Start Up Programme is taught in partnership with higher education institutions (universities) and its placement within their curriculum is at the discretion of the institution.

How to organise:

The programme is likely to consist of 18-36 hours of instruction and/or volunteer-led activities; it could incorporate a mixture of timetabled lesson time, suspended timetable time or students' own time (extra-curricular)

Assessment and evaluation approaches

Regular Board meetings/review; preparation of Annual Report and Liquidation Report

Volunteer involvement

Ongoing support and advice is provided from volunteer business consultants. 

Although the students are responsible for setting up and running their own companies, teacher input includes reinforcing the advice from business consultants, ongoing support for mini-companies and integration of the project into the students' main learning programme

Additional comments

A brochure is available for download here: http://archive.ja-ye.org/Download/TES/start-up-programme.pdf

Files for download:

start-up-programme.pdf / 3967kB

Provider Institution: