Running the challenge in a single lesson a week
A light-touch plan for weaving live markets into your timetable without extra prep.
You do not need a finance background or a spare unit on your scheme of work to run the Student Investor Challenge. One lesson a week is enough to keep teams engaged for the whole of round one.
Week one: teams and a thesis
Split the class into teams of four and give each team one job before they trade: pick three companies they can explain in a sentence. That single constraint turns “buy something” into a reasoned decision.
The weekly rhythm
Spend the first ten minutes on the league table — who moved, and why they think it happened. Ten minutes on one concept (diversification, the Windfall Tax, active vs strategic). The rest of the lesson is trading time. That is the whole plan.
Let the game do the teaching
The Windfall Tax on idle cash, the trade cap on the Strategic portfolio, the daily price swings — the rules are the curriculum. Your job is mostly to ask “why?” and let students argue it out.
Learn it by playing it
Build a virtual £100,000 portfolio and put these ideas to work.
See how it works