Technical Department

Programme Overview

Running over the course of a full academic year, young people from S5 & S6 start up their own student company, running through the key milestones of developing an idea, conducting market research, creating the product or service, promoting that product and ultimately trading it.

You might expect this to be a programme specifically targeted at those with an interest in business, however the 2,000 young people who participate each year across Scotland have a very broad range of interests. Company Programme can be used to provide a real-life context to many subject areas — design and computing involved in the design of the product, English to develop the persuasive language for marketing, or Maths to establish a profitable selling price - student’s involvement in Company Programme provides a rich real-life learning experience.

What's in it for Young People?

• Opportunities to apply classroom learning in real and relevant contexts

• Develop essential skills required for future life and work (UCAS even use YE as an example of what to put on the form!)

• Real experience of work 

• Engaging with a volunteer mentor from the world of work

• Opportunity to take part in the YE Scotland Company Programme qualification at SCQF Level 6 worth up to 30 credit points

• Supports career education through the provision of real-life experiences of work

• Drives positive attitudes to learning, life and work

• Students can use their experience to complete UCAS applications

Young Enterprise Support

• A dedicated online platform to support students through their Company Programme experience

• Business Mentor to support students through the programme - either remotely or in person

• Public liability insurance for all of the student companies

• An e-commerce platform for online trading

• Competitions for student companies throughout the programme.

Assessment - SCQF Level 6

As part of the Company Programme, you have the opportunity to gain an SCQF Level 6 qualification worth 26-30 credit points. The accreditation is run by Young Enterprise Scotland in partnership with Glasgow Kelvin College 

In order to achieve the accreditation for taking part in Young Enterprise Scotland’s Company Programme, you will need to collect your own personal evidence and group evidence in an online portfolio via Moodle. All the evidence will be generated as you work through the milestones on Company Connect. You will get advice and support from your Business Mentor and Educator but help is at hand via the support team at Young Enterprise Scotland also. 

For each milestone, there is a Folio of Evidence checklist and accompanying student guidance which lists all of the evidence you will need to submit to achieve accreditation. Some of the tasks you will need to complete individually and upload, while other evidence is marked as a group task e.g. brainstorming activity. Where it is a group task we need someone in the Student Company to take responsibility to upload the evidence. All evidence must be clear as this is assessment evidence, for example, if this is a minute of a meeting then the minute needs to be readable and contain the information required. 

Is this qualification recognised by UCAS?

Yes, absolutely! Passing the qualification gains you 21 tariff points on UCAS. 

Examples of Work

Skills Developed