Upper Primary Business Fair
This Saturday, the 9th of December, 2023
A Children’s Business Fair instills leadership, courage, perseverance, and responsibility into young hearts and minds.
We desire this to be a fun event with many opportunities to learn and grow and for the child entrepreneurs to experience ownership and responsibility of their projects.
Dear Parents,
As you may have already heard, upper primary classes have started small businesses in small groups!
They will be selling their products or services on 9th December at Gacuriro Community Hall. This will be Discovery's second Children's Business Fair.
After the first business fair in June, we realised it was better to do the business fair every December to free up the calendar in the third term. There were numerous challenges in the June event, given that it was the first experience. We contemplated canceling but ultimately saw that the opportunity to be entrepreneurial and test business at a young age is a valuable experience, one worth the challenging process. We are organising and preparing more intensively at the class level this time and we will continue to improve the process every year.
Classes involved this year: 6e Adelard/Christa, CM1 (Ms. Pamela/Francois), CM2 Loic/Pascal, Years 5, 6, and 7 (Mr Edwin, Ms. Laura and Mr. Emmanuel).
The students are in the final stages of preparation for the business fair, they have brainstormed ideas and worked on their ideas at school with the help of some parents and teachers.
The children have also completed calculations for the required materials and resources. After the selling process, they will discuss and workout their profit margins.
We want to reiterate that each child has a gift that can profoundly change the world.
We hope we can help your child continue to learn that they can do hard things, be accountable.
Thank you again for being a part of this remarkable event! Please see the remainder of this document for details outlining your role as parents, some rules, and other information.
Dress code: Discovery Tshirts and black trousers/leggings
7:50 am - Arrival and business set-up
Business Fair
Play/Concert
Business Fair
1:00 pm - Reconcile sales, close shops, and pack up
Sincerely,
The Discovery International School Team
Capital and profit management
Parents are requested to send the agreed capital per child to the school MTN Mobile Money Number or follow the class teacher's guidelines.
Funds invested (minus losses incurred) will be refunded to parents by 23rd, December 2023
A parent representative for each group will be sent the full amount via mobile money to distribute to other parents in the business group.
Profit and loss will be shared equally amongst classmates in each class.
Each class will distribute their profit as follows;
10% of the profit - Facilities charges (to go to a charity cause)
30% or more of the profit - Savings for the next business fair
with time, the goal is to make sure students can use more and more of their savings as capital for their next business fair, relying less and less on parents
60% or less of the profit - to spend meaningfully, as they wish as a class
Guidelines for adults
Engage in open discussions with your child about raising investment for their business, potentially through your support, and formulate a marketing strategy.
Each class will invest an agreed shared total that will go to the different businesses in their class, each student will invest an equal amount that will be communicated by the teacher.
Kindly send the amount/investment as soon as possible. They will bring back this amount after selling their products.
Your contribution will play a crucial role in supporting your child's project and developing their entrepreneurial spirit.
Parents/Guardians/Teachers of younger children may supervise, but the children are to be responsible for the setup, sales and interacting with the customers.
This event is designed to give children a taste of selling a product. We must let them have that experience.
Any adult seen selling to the customer or promoting the child’s product will result in disqualification.
Five “Smooth Stones” – Principles to Keep in Mind
Wonder: There are so many opportunities. We are giving children the gift of wonder. Ask open-ended questions.
Industriousness: Together we help the child to see and experience the gift of seeing the fruit of hard work.
Responsibility: We treat the child as the business owner. We let them make the plans and the decisions as much as possible.
Encouragement: Provide encouraging communication.
Enthusiasm: Provide passion for the Children’s Business Fair.
Five Warnings
Adults tend to make children’s events too stressful. What is needed from adults are clear boundaries and backstage organization. Then, let the children flourish. This is not about the adults, it is about the child.
Adults can make children’s events too complicated. This is not Shark Tank or a business plan competition. You do not need complex business plans.
Adults tend to get ahead of their children in passion. There is great value in your child not getting everything done in time. This will help them learn. Make sure they create a product or service they are excited about. Remember the parental adage that “there is blessing in a skinned knee.”
Adults tend to get ahead of children in competitiveness. The adult role is not to be Elon Musk, a business school professor, or a venture capitalist.
Adults tend to rob children of the joy of hard work. We will not do the work for the children. If the product or service looks messy, that is okay; in fact, that is great! We encourage your children to make a good product or service, but never take the role of a business board, manager, or owner.
As adults we must make sure we do not rob the work environment of joy by prodding or criticizing.
The child is the Chairman, CEO, and owner. As adults, we are going to let each child be those things.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can speak to your class teacher or the Business Fair Coordinator, Mr. Edwin on edwin@discoveryrwanda.org or via the school line.
To understand more about why it is important to inspire entrepreneurship in children, please click here and read about
THE 3 MAGIC SEEDS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP BY JEFF SANDEFER