Case Studies

Successful Taktix with the Young Chamber

The Young Chambers students from Maidstone were only too pleased when we approached them to test Taktix Online and Taktix 'A Taste of Enterprise'. The energy and noise created in the room were enough to tell us they were having fun!

The aim of the Young Chamber is to try and provide young people with a direct line to businesses and employers in their area to help provide young people with the skills and knowledge they will need to enter the workplace confidently. The Young Chamber groups consist of students from Year 7 to Year 12 who meet regularly. They also form Young Chamber Councils who, together with teachers and local Chamber staff, establish enterprise activities across all year groups. A business plan for the year is created and the Council also act as a focus group feeding back views and information from both students and business.

Asking the Young Chamber to test Taktix for us meant not only did we have a really good mix of ages but also a good mix of enterprise knowledge and capabilities. Some students were studying for A Level Business Studies whilst others had virtually no enterprise awareness.

The board game proved to be a great ice breaker among the students and got them interacting by having to choose names for their businesses and deciding where to invest their money. The game enabled the students to put their knowledge to the test but at the same time showed them how external factors affected their play as they do in real business by hitting opportunities or managing a crisis. It gave a real understanding of how businesses are affected by both the owners decisions and initial research and the customers.

Next to play, came the online game where students were asked to choose their own level of play and had the added option of including social enterprise or sustainable sets of questions. They particularly liked the visuals as they could see the money coming out of their account as they bought good/services for their business and thought the links to the Business Link website were good, especially as it took them to the relevant page for their answer. Some thought this was cheating but as we tell everyone it is about taking advantage of any help offered to start up in business.

The students liked the idea of having reports showing how well they had done and a league board so they can benchmark themselves against their friends.

The feedback received from the students on playing both the board game and the online version was very positive and included:

• I thought it was a brilliant game and found it really fun!
• Good method of learning
• The instructions were clear and the aim of the game was realistic
• It taught me things that I did not know and was a fun, simple and effective game
• Can be useful for revision
• Great for homework, fun way of learning, encouraging

All comments that were made were fed back into the development of the games.