Young Enterprise and education

Supporting many aspects of the curriculum, both formally through the YE OCR accredited examination and informally, Young Enterprise programmes have been designed to provide experiences of how business works and to understand the role it plays in providing employment and creating prosperity.
Becoming increasingly important is the contribution made to supporting the nine elements in the framework of the new statutory provision of Work Related Learning.

Overview of the Company Programme

YE Company Programme is a co-curricular activity for year 12 or 13 that gives students an opportunity to learn how to run their own businesses. They will

• Hold weekly business meetings acting in a formal way with a Chair and a Secretary
• Elect Function Directors who will report activities to these meetings
• Select a target market, develop a product for that market, sell shares to raise capital
• Produce a prototype, do market research and finalise the product for the market
• Promote and sell their products to make a profit.
• At year end, produce an annual report complete with financial information.
• Take part in a competition where they present their company and give an analysis of the things that they learned. Thus gaining an understanding of what went wrong and what went right.
• Wind up the company, return capital to the shareholders and distribute profits.

Support that the students receive

Business Advisers

The group of students, called Achievers will be guided by Business Advisers who will attend their weekly management meetings and act as consultants. Initially directing and gradually becoming supportive but always allowing the Achievers to make their own decisions (even if they are wrong).
Business Advisers are volunteers appointed by the Young Enterprise regional organisation and have been vetted and issued with a volunteer permit.

Business Administration application

The YE Company Programme package includes a business administration application.

• Accounts record keeping
• Financial management - automatic P&L and Balance sheet
• Milestone planning with key events calendar
• Task allocation
• Messages between members of the team
• Social networking with other YE Companies

This system has been developed and refined over the past 40 years within the UK and now provides almost everything that students need to run their business.

Benefits to Students

The students will

• be challenged and will develop as individuals.
• improve their ability at independent learning.
• become more self motivated
• develop leadership skills and confidence
• develop teamwork skills and mutual respect for other members of the team
• develop presentation skills
• be introduced to the ideas of business and make them more fit for the world of work.

Benefits to School

Participation in the YE Company Programme

• Increases the co-curricular activities in the school
• Not just for business students, creates a cross curriculum group.
• Participation in YE can be included in school promotional material to show that the school has a serious interest in Business Studies and in developing entrepreneurs.
• Gives an opportunity for a ‘good news’ story when the group wins a business award.
• Produces business awards to display in the success cabinet.

School Commitments

• Quiet room that can be used as a board room once a week
• Link teacher support at meetings and during the week as required by the students.
• Product production support if required.
• Annual fee, negotiable with YE London.

School and Programme support

Schools who participate in the Young Enterprise programmes have their own business Development manager who will keep in constant contact. Young Enterprise also offer a number of other programmes that support enterprise in school. You will also receive support from The London Central South area Board which is composed of Business Advisers and Teachers.