Back My Business -St Martin in the fields High School

Young people are challenged to create real businesses. They compete for 0% interest loans and MyBnk support in making their business a reality.

Small teams create business plans and budgets, pitching their ideas to a panel of adults and young people, who assess applications and select winners. 

MyBnk provides the resources and support to develop their ideas, taking them from the drawing board to a pre-arranged marketplace. Participants can keep all profits or donate to a charity of their choice. Loans are up to £40 per group.

Round 1: In a 100 minute workshop, MyBnk helps teams generate their business ideas and make their business proposal count. Participants must identify their target audience, cost of materials and ensure their idea has a unique selling point. Emphasis is placed on enterprises with a strong social element.

Round 2: The top 7-10 businesses progress to round two. Here a chosen group of young people (for example school council, sixth formers or business students) will assess the ideas, choosing the final 3- 5 businesses that will go on to receive a MyBnk loan.

Round 3: The winning 3-5 teams receive their loan and, over two further 100 minute workshops, develop and design products/services to make their businesses customer-ready. A market place, agreed with the school, sees teams trading real goods and services to real customers in a competitive environment. Following this, we wrap up - the young people evaluate their experience, review the skills they have learnt, pay back their loan and pocket any profit made.

Format: The programme runs over one half term (3-6 weeks)

Target group: 11-16 year olds

Group size: Initial workshop for up to a whole year group, with 12-30 young people receiving loans and further workshops.