MyBnk

Throughout Autumn 2014, Five Lamps delivered a MyBnk Business Battle session at Beverley School Middlesbrough, which is a specialist school for children and young people with autism

The Business Battle is a six session challenge, to give young people the opportunity to become entrepreneurs and sell their service or product(s). The sessions were delivered by Jenny Donaldson, Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project Manager and included; generating ideas, product design, budget and costs, logistics and production, price and marketing, selling and reflection.

The seventeen enterprise students from Beverley School aged 16-17 split into four groups to create their products. Group 1 worked with food and made biscuits, muffins, cakes and hot drinks. Group 2 worked with wood and made hand-made decorations and plaques. Group 3 worked with textiles and made cushion covers, felt baubles and wreaths. Group 4 worked with environmental finds, they made wreaths from locally sourced materials.

A Christmas Market day was held at Five Lamps South Thornaby Community Centre and gave the young people an opportunity to put the skills and knowledge they had learnt over the six sessions in to practice and to sell their high quality products.

The Market day was a success and was visited by people from Stockton, Middlesbrough and Thornaby. All of the customers left positive feedback on the young people’s enthusiasm and hard work which was put in to the Christmas Market.

The students made over £200 profit and their remaining stock will be sold at their Christmas shows.

Georgina Smith, a customer who travelled from Stockton for the event said:

“It was a lovely Christmas Market – You can tell the young people have worked hard on their items. I treated myself to some lovely decorations and had tea and cakes in the cafe. I thought the customer service was excellent and I would love to see something like this happen more often, it was really nice and has got me into the Christmas spirit”

Trevor Tiit, Beverley School’s Head of Sixth Form added

“Our involvement in Business Battle engaged students in a valuable, real life entrepreneurial challenge. They enjoyed working with Jenny Donaldson, from the Five Lamps Organisation, whom we would like to thank for the support she has given to Beverley School. All the students worked extremely hard to produce high quality products for sale and did a great job in running the café and stalls in the centre for the day. I’d also like to thank everyone who came to support us during the event”

In July 2014, MyBnk North East delivered a Money Twist session to 41 young people at Thornaby Academy

The young people were preparing to move in to their final year of school and the interactive session gave them valuable skills and knowledge to help with their future finances. Topics included budgeting money, prioritising needs and wants, savings and pensions.

The session began with the Year 11’s sharing with the group the last five items they had purchased. The receipts were then used to help them identify their needs and wants. The teachers also volunteered to write a receipt of the last items they had purchased to allow the young adults to assess their receipts and identify which items they needed to buy and which items they didn’t necessarily need but wanted.

The receipts then opened up several of debates and then allowed them to begin prioritising their needs and wants and looking into budgeting their finances.

Ryan, 14 said:

“I have an understanding about the difference of a want and need, which will make me think twice when spending my pocket money”

To help the young adults learn more about budgeting they were set a task to help a case study of a young lady to save up for a holiday to Ibiza. The whole class created a budget which would in fact save the young lady enough money to take her trip to Ibiza and still live the same lifestyle.

Whilst creating their budget’s the class learnt about the different household costs and bills people might budget for. Also different types of insurance a person may pay to help protect themselves, their home, car and pets.

After they had finished the budgeting the class were shown different savings options that could be available and the interest rates of savings. The class then looked through the advantages and disadvantages of certain savings account and pension schemes.

Kern, 14 said

“I thought the workshop was very engaging and good because it gave me more of an understanding of insurance, tax, pensions, bills and money”

In July 2014, 132- Y9 and Y10 students were all given a 100 minutes lesson on personal finance for KS3 and KS4 learners

The lesson; Money Twist -My Choices looks at attitudes towards money, prioritising needs and wants and saving for the future.

Ormesby School welcomed new MyBnk Education Officers Amy Baker and Matt Dobson – the day went down a storm and feedback from the young people proved they thought the day was effective, fun and will be helpful for their futures.

Emma, 14 said:

“I really liked MyBnk because I learnt a lot and now I can keep these skills for the future”

At the end of the sessions the students were asked to feedback on how they thought the session has improved their understanding, knowledge and confidence. Here’s how they scored…

• 98% of students reported a better understanding of risks associated with long term saving options
• 96% of students reported a better understanding of how to prioritise their needs and wants effectively
• 92% of students reported a better understanding of how to use a budget and make effective use of their money
• 85% reported a higher confidence in choosing appropriate insurance products.

Jake, 13 said:

“I think they are good at teaching people about prioritising needs and wants. Also I have learnt quite a lot about saving money and the activities were really good”

“I really enjoyed the workshop. At first when I heard we were doing about finance and choices, I thought it would be boring but MyBnk made it a lot more fun. The worksheets were easy to understand and the trainers were really helpful. I hope to do something with these again”

Commented Brooklyn aged 14

In June 2014, 77 Y12 students from Ashington High School received a fast paced fun workshop looking at Uni Dosh

MyBnk’s Uni Dosh programme covers all the essentials needed for student finance including loans, grants, scholarships and bursaries.

The session is aimed at 16-25 year olds who are considering going onto higher education. The programme, 100minutes in length looks at money coming in as a student, money going out, managing money and Q&A.

The programme is also beneficial for those looking for jobs as it goes through a shopping challenge which is great for anyone who is living independently.

Jan Hume, Student Support Officer at Ashington High School commented “Great information for students”
At the end of the sessions the students were asked to feedback on how they thought the session has improved their understanding, knowledge and confidence.

Here’s how they scored…

• 96% of students reported good or better understanding of what grants, bursaries and scholarships are
• 93% of students reported good or better understanding of how student loans work
• 90% of students reported their intention to budget money more regularly
• 90% of students reported good or better understanding of the cost of the things they will be spending their money on when they are at university
• 83% of students reported their intention to save their money more regularly
• 86% of students reported their confidence had improved when making money decisions.

In June 2014, MyBnk North East delivered Enterprise-in-a-Box to six young people at Albemarle Barracks in Northumbria

The young people who live on the barracks decided they wanted a challenge for their youth club so Lisa Robinson, Community Development Worker, called Jenny from MyBnk North East and invited her to come and deliver to six high ability young people aged 11-15.

Enterprise-in-a-Box is delivered in three parts. Firstly, MyBnk introduces young people to social enterprise through a range of holistic activities and once they get it, they do it. They immediately leave the session as young entrepreneurs with exclusive and ethical tool-kits ranging from Divine Chocolate, visionary soaps and lip balms, and hand-grenade shaped seedboms.

Secondly, the teams go out and sell whilst analysing and evaluating key learning points such as working as a team, meeting deadlines, problem-solving, dealing with customers and of course, selling!

Lastly, the young people present their experience and show evidence of how they done and how they’d do it differently if they could do it again.

Enterprise-in-a-Box eliminates ideas generation and allows young people to run a social enterprise without having to worry about target audience, pricing, branding and development, it acts as a great stepping stone to enterprise and business skills and aims to encourage young people to be aware of their opportunities in later life when looking for careers and jobs.

Lisa Robinson, Community Development Worker at Albemarle barracks community centre said:

“I love the MyBnk programme! Enterprise-in-a-Box has a fantastic scheme, and a great introduction to finance and business. I think the programme is well thought out, accessible and allows for a broad range of ages and stages to be involved. I love the concept and its flexibility. There is very little I could suggest improving the programme. Feedback from the young people indicated they were keen to see a wider variety of products in the boxes, but I feel as an introduction to enterprise the range is ideal. I can’t stress enough how great the programme is and how it has benefited our young people. This programme should be international!”

Over three fun sessions a year 8 class of 30 pupils at The Dukes’ Middle School, Alnwick were given the opportunity to become bankers, economists and finance managers through Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project

The first session gave the pupils a chance to find out the history of money, the different currencies around the world, how economists work out the value of money in each country and how to convert the currencies into the Great British Pound.

The second session then moved on to where we get money from, the age you can start employment and the minimum -wage. The session also helped the students identify their needs and wants and how to budget money.

They were then put to test to see what they had learnt by helping a case study of a young gentleman in London budget his money. All students had managed to identify the young gentleman’s needs and wants and create a budget to save him some money.

The third session was aimed to pull all of their skills together from the previous sessions and become bankers. Each group learnt about what makes a good bank, ethical banking and interest rates (AER & APR). They then created their own banks. After the banks had been created each group presented to the whole class their ideas for their bank in a ‘dragons den’ format. The creative presentations by the students included; dancing, singing and rapping.

Feedback from the students included:

Emily aged 13 -”I thought it was really good and helpful towards my spending. I have also learnt about the policy banks obey”

Hannah aged 13 – “I learned a lot about what we used to do before money and had fun! I now know what to do in order to save”

Hannon aged 13 – “It was great fun! It has helped a lot with my understanding of money”

Two teachers who observed the sessions agreed that the programme is very valuable for young people and that the MyBnk trainer(s) were very effective in engaging the young people.

Miss Adair stated:

“The session was very engaging and actually put information in a simple way that I could understand too”

During April and May 2014, Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project Officer Jenny Donaldson delivered a MyBnk Enterprise- in- a- box programme to ten 18-21 year olds at Stockton Riverside College

Classmates from the Transition to Further Education course put their newly found entrepreneurial skills to the test in a market trade challenge.

During the programme, the group split into teams and choose a range of products to sell. They then took part in a number of expert MyBnk workshops. The interactive workshops introduced the students to the concept of social enterprise, including writing a business plan, budgeting and marketing before selling their products.

Tutor Alexa Lang said:

“The students have learnt many things from this project. They have learnt about enterprise, advertising, customer service, money handling skills, working together as a team and research”

The products chosen by the groups all had an exclusive ethical edge exclusively sourced by MyBnk and included Seedboms®, Visionary Soap® and Divine Chocolate®. All items are ethical and promote fair trade as well as helping prevent pollution to the environment, raising awareness for valuable causes.

The products were available to buy from the stall run by the Abbey Hill School & Technology College pupils. After reinvesting £40 back into more stock and decorating their marketplace, they made a total profit of £112.84 and donated 50% back to the MyBnk project.

The young people are studying the transition course at Stockton Riverside College as they prepare to make the move to the college.

Student Jake Wilkinson, 20, of Sedgefield, said:

“I have enjoyed this challenge thoroughly. We have been learning a lot about money skills and how to work as a team”

In April and May 2014, Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project Officer Jenny Donaldson delivered a MyBnk Money Twist programme to eighteen 16-18 year olds at the Sixth Form at The Beverley School in Middlesbrough

The Beverley School is a specialist school for children and young people with autism.

Money Twist KS3 consists of three highly interactive and adaptive sessions building young people’s knowledge around basic finance and helping them engage with money:

• Story of Money: History and features of money, Forms of payment, Currency & exchange rates
• Managing Money: Budgeting, Youth employment, Minimum wage, Needs and wants and Saving
• Banking Money: Interest, Accounts, Ethical banking, Flow of money, Connecting the learning from previous sessions

Ryan, 17 said

“It was very interesting and very important, especially for other people who save money for the future”

Money Twist involves writing, presenting, drawing, maths and problem solving. It uses real life case studies, colourful resources, games and videos drawn from their age group and popular culture, enabling students to explore and form their own opinions regarding their relationship with money. Activities cater for a variety of learning styles, with many extensions and variations.

Throughout the workshop participants create and present their own Bank of the Future in groups of 3-4. The Beverley School’s Sixth Form group certainly had their thinking caps on and the ideas that came out of the sessions were brilliant…biometric scanning, contactless payments and security features so safe that you’d have to have a secret hand-shake to get your hands on big cash withdrawls.

Trevor Tiit, Head of Sixth Form said

“Excellent, definitely a worthwhile programme”

Money Twist is based on the Every Child Matters, Ofsted and PSHEE guidelines on financial literacy, and maps into aspects of the PSHEE, Citizenship, Maths and English curriculum. It is ideal for financial capability focus days, enterprise weeks or can be built into a lesson plan over a number of weeks.

In March 2014, Five Lamps delivered a MyBnk Enterprise-in-a-Box session at St Michael’s RC School in Billingham

27 Year 10 Business BTEC students took up the challenge and aimed to make as much money as possible over lent so that they could send the 70% of their profits to CAFOD (The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development).

During the 3 week project, the group split into 5 teams each choosing a product to sell. They then took part in a number of expert workshops delivered by Jenny Donaldson, Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project Officer.

The interactive workshops introduced the students to the concept of social enterprise, including writing a business plan, budgeting and marketing before selling their products.

Nathan Small, 15 said

“It was a fantastic experience I really enjoyed. I like what Mybnk are doing and it is a great idea, I would definitely like to do it again”

The products chosen by the groups all had an exclusive ethical edge exclusively sourced by MyBnk and included Seedboms®, Visionary Soap® and Divine Chocolate®. All items are ethical and promote fair trade as well as helping prevent pollution to the environment, raising awareness for valuable causes.

The teams had plenty of routes to market with Mother’s day, Easter and other events going on in the school. Some teams even worked together to offer gift packs and made more profits by offering customers more for their money. The main customers were teachers, parents and students.

The project was a great success, with the 5 teams generating a total revenue of £324.10, enabling them to make a donation of £234.30 to CAFOD

Karen Jackson, Head of Business and ICT at St Michael’s RC School said

“Loved it! I think that it has been a super opportunity for BTEC group. Excellent introduction to social enterprise, simple products to sell, easy means of getting more stock in manageable quantities. Jenny has been very helpful, enthusiastic and professional”

Naomi Ramsay, 14 commented

“I think this was really good if you want to start your own business off one day”

First week back at college in the New Year can be a daunting time for those applying to Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). Deadlines are fast approaching and money matters are usually left until last minute

The Hermitage Academy & Sixth Form in Chester-Le-Street brought in Five Lamps’ MyBnk project to deliver short sessions on the importance of Uni Dosh to 15 2nd year students.

The workshops covered everything from money coming in such as loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships and part time work, to money going out such as regular payments, student current accounts and incentives.

The favourite task of the programme was a banking activity where groups of students work together to decipher through a real bank statement from a term at Uni and answer questions such as, what’s the difference between a direct debit and a standing order. Choosing a bank as a student is very important too, topics such as APR Vs AER, ethical banking were covered to make sure young people know their rights when choosing a bank and why banks want your business as a young person…you’re more likely to get divorced in the UK than you are to ever change your bank account!

After the workshops we asked the students if their confidence in certain topics had improved and this was the results we got…

• 100% of students reported a good or better understanding of how student loans work
• 93% of students reported a better understanding of what grants, bursaries and scholarships are
• 80% of students reported a better understanding of the positives and negatives of borrowing
• 93% of students reported their intention to budget their money more regularly
• 60% of students reported their intention to change their spending habits
• 73% of students reported their intention to change something else about their money habits
• 100% of students reported a better understanding of the cost of the things they will be spending their money on whilst at University
• 93% of students reported higher confidence in making important money decisions