Dear Parents,
We have had a particularly full week in both rooms, and I have been waiting for a quiet moment all weekend to sit down and write this properly. There is a date at the end I would like you to put in your diary, but first, the sessions themselves.
Young Founders House - Money and Business Club
This was the week I had been quietly waiting for all term, because it was the week we did the paperwork. I know that does not sound thrilling on the page, but for the children, it was the most grown-up afternoon they have had at Young Founders House so far. Two concepts the children will carry well past any market: the partnership agreement and the loan.
We began with the partnership, because most of the children are running their market business with a friend or two, and what they were about to learn applies to any business with more than one founder. I had prepared a proper written agreement in advance for each partnership, and they sat down together to work through it, what percentage of the materials each of them would pay for, what percentage of the profit each of them would take home, and who would be responsible for what before, during, and after the market. They discussed it as a group, often disagreed, and eventually wrote everything down and signed it. I countersigned each one. The signed agreements are now with me, in what I have promised the children is the official Young Founders House vault, and there they will stay until the term is over.
The second concept was the loan. We talked about how a loan actually works, why a bank lends money in the first place, and how it makes money by charging interest on what it lends back. Then we got to the part I think matters most, which is how you pitch a lender, you. 🙂
Those of you whose child needs a loan to buy their materials will already have a loan agreement at home, or one is on the way home this weekend. As you go through the next couple of weeks buying everything, please hold on to the receipts, and when the buying is done, sit down with your child and help them work out the total to put into the loan agreement. If that is easier said than done in a busy week, take photos of the receipts as you go and send them to me by email or WhatsApp, and I will sit down with the children in the session, and we will do the calculations together.
I have now created a web page for the Young Founders Market. Please feel free to forward the page to friends and family. We would love as many people as possible to know about it and come and visit us there. It will be a great day out for everyone.
Rise to Lead - Public Speaking, Confidence and Leadership Club
The first half of the session was the workshop, and this week was about the sandwich. I told the children that every good talk is built like a sandwich, with a slice of bread at the top to open it, the filling in the middle, which is their own opinion, and the examples that back it up, and a second slice of bread at the bottom to finish it. A bad sandwich is one where everything falls out of the sides because there is too much in the middle and no bread holding it together, and a bad talk is exactly the same. I gave them a bad version of a talk and then a good version of the same talk so they could feel the difference, and they each sketched their own sandwich into their notebooks, what their opening line might be, the two or three things they want to say in the middle, and how they want to finish. We then spent ten minutes choosing the topic of their final presentation, and I am pleased to tell you that every single child has now chosen, and the topics are more varied than I had expected. You are in for a treat. 🙂
Then we did the team challenge, and it was honestly one of the most fun ones we have run all term. The children had ten minutes to put together a live news broadcast, with the twist that they had been sent back in time to interview a real historical figure of their choosing, one child playing the figure and the rest of the team as reporters. Between them, the teams went for Henry VIII, Frida Kahlo, and Charles II, and I have to tell you, the imagination they brought to those ten minutes was something I did not see coming. Every child got up on stage. Every child had a part. It was loud, funny, and in places more historically accurate than I expected. The Blue Team, The Dolphins, won this week's vote.
Dates for the Diary
Young Founders Market - Sunday 7 June, 12:00–2:00 pm, The Patch, 42 York Street, Twickenham. Children arrive at 11:30 am.
Our last regular Rise to Lead session of the term will be on Monday, 13 July, and the showcase, where the children will present their personal talks to you, will be the following Sunday at The Patch, on Sunday 19 July, around noon. I have chosen Sunday because the venue is much quieter on a Sunday, the main ground floor space will be available to us, and we should all fit there comfortably.
If there is any chance you will be away on that date, would you reply to this email or drop me a text by Friday, 22 May, so I can plan around it. I would really like to see every one of you there. The full logistics, drop-off time, and running order will follow closer to the date.
That is everything from this week. As always, if you have a question about either programme or if there is anything you would like to talk through, you can reply to this email or message me directly on 07414 962803.
If you have missed any of our previous newsletters, you can catch up on them all here:
https://newsletter.configuracademy.com/
Have a lovely weekend.
Orgesa
Founder, Rise to Lead
Configur Academy
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