In the last few weeks of term, Fyling Hall’s Y10 Business class put into practice some of the theory they have learnt throughout the year – ‘making it real’.

They started off with an activity called ‘Gateaux Galore’, working in teams of 2 or 3, running a business that makes gateaux. They worked out how many gateaux to produce, bid for orders and price their products competitively. The aim was to make the most profit over a nine month period. The buyer (me!) chose how many to buy from each team based purely on price. Pupils then had to calculate their gross and net profit (or loss), and make a decision on what to do the next month. After a few months pupils started to see what methods would work the best to maximise profit, whether to play carefully and make a slower steady profit, or go all out taking risks to make a large profit quickly. The winning team was Justine and TJ who made over £150,000 profit, over £100,000 more than the second placed team, earning them chocolate cupcakes as a prize.

The second activity was a marketing project with pupils working for Cadbury’s and being tasked with creating a new chocolate bar for them. They had to research what was already on the market, create questionnaires to ask peoples’ opinions, come up with design of the bar including ingredients and then design the packaging. Individual presentations were created on how they would launch their product onto the market, including different promotion methods, and deliver the presentation to the rest of the class. There were some great ideas, interesting and unusual chocolate bar designs, and everybody delivered their presentation confidently. Most of the pupils have English as a second language so this is especially commendable.

Finally we discussed how Fyling Hall leases out some of the school buildings during the summer holidays. They looked at how leasing the school could be promoted to different groups e.g. outward bound groups and created posters, leaflets and webpages. They also used some imaginary data to create a cash flow forecast for the summer season, to see if the school could generate a healthy income.

Pupils worked really well on these projects and hopefully it helped to reinforce some of the terminology and methods they’ve met this year.

Mrs Banks, Business Teacher