As IBCP business students, we have been studying many different units, such as Finance, that have been very interesting to learn about. 

For example, we learned about induction programmes in businesses as part of Unit 21, with Miss Ali, where we had to choose a well known business and create an induction programme for new employees to follow. Lots of businesses don’t advertise their induction programmes so this created a challenge as we had to make sense of the business by ourselves. This assignment was really fun to do because when we join the world of work, it will matter to us. 

One of the top tips from Ms Ali for this unit was that it was important to do a lot of research about induction programmes in different types of industries in order for us as students to understand what we should include in our inductions for the project. Furthermore, we were advised to use different formats for the various documents we had to make, as businesses would likely do the same to create a sense of variety.

Another unit we have been studying is Unit 1 which is all about ‘Exploring Businesses’. In this unit, we had to do assignments based on comparing and contrasting businesses. We also had to compare a business and a charity. Mr Khan was and is always ready to help us when it came to that assignment. We learnt to do the following for charities: structure, stakeholders, shareholders, volunteers, employees, how they work, where they work, SWOT analysis, and PESTLE analysis. 

One of the top tips from Mr Khan for this unit was that we should choose a business that we have an interest in because it was a long assignment, where we had to do a presentation with very long and detailed speaker notes, and we had to present it to our peers. 

Another unit we are doing at the moment is Unit 3, which is all about ‘Personal and Business Finance’ with Miss Jennings and she has been a wonderful teacher because she is always trying her best to teach us. This is a very interesting topic to learn about because, as students, we would like to know more about our personal finance. We have been learning about how banks work and what are different alternatives of banks, and what we as young adults should learn and how to take care of our finances. In the beginning, the topic felt boring as we were learning about different types of cards and how they work. I have gathered tips from teachers around the school to help everyone on how to have a good credit score in the future; how to stop yourself from going into debt and how to have a good budget that can be useful.

Tops tips for a good credit score:

• Ask your parents to open an account for you so that you can start building your credit

• Having direct debits, for example paying your phone bill
  
  

Stop going into debt:

• Stop overspending 

• Pre-plan 

• Don’t spend what you don’t have 

• Don’t have a lot of credit cards

• Pay all your bills on time (no late fees)
  
  

Top tips for having a good budget: 

• Have saving accounts

• Use banking apps like Monzo, Revolut and Sterling Bank etc 

• Create pots to help with budgeting