On Tuesday Form 6 were privileged to be given an excellent lesson in how businesses work. A group of trainers and volunteers from SATRO came to the school and took the children through an experience which they will not forget.
The pupils in Form 6 were placed into 9 teams with 7 pupils in each team. Initially they were asked to come up with a name for their team and then they were asked to assign leadership roles including the Managing Director, Financial Manager, Marketing Manager and HR Manager to each person in their team. Meetings with the training leader, Nevil Kapadia, were then arranged with different leaders at different times where specific tasks and instructions were given to the teams.
Each team was provided with some seed money and they then had to buy certain materials (Beads, string, nameplates etc) with which they then made into gifts and trinkets. The task given to the teams was they had to produce a prototype of a trinket which they would then need to sell to two different buyers who would negotiate with them about the price, the number of articles they contracted to make and the time frame they would complete the task by. If the team produced the required number of trinkets at the negotiated standard they were then given money and occasionally bonuses if their work was of a good quality. The team that made the most amount of money was to be declared the winner.
The pupils engaged positively in the activity and learnt a great deal about business and about how to work in a team. Their creativity was praised by the facilitators and some of the children proved to be excellent negotiators and marketers. The trinkets they were able to produce were well designed, colourful and unique. One team came up with the idea of creating coasters and this team won the best gift category. Another team was awarded the prize for producing the best marketing poster on the day.
At the end of the day, the children were asked to set up a presentation which promoted their company and explained what they were trying to achieve. They also had to deliver a pitch for their brand and promote their merchandise. This was generally very well done by the pupils. The facilitators were impressed with the manner in which our pupils had engaged with the whole day.
This was an exceptionally good and worthwhile day where our children learnt a great deal about the workings of business. We hope that many of them will go on to being great and successful business people in the future.
