Getting started: a teacher’s guide to running Student Investor with your class

If you have been handed Student Investor as a term project and are not sure where to start, you are in exactly the right place. The challenge is run with The London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF) and is education-first by design: students trade virtual money against live London stock prices, learn from the consequences, and compete for real prizes — including a trip to New York for the national final winners. Your job as a teacher is far lighter than you might expect.

What Student Investor actually is (in one minute)

Student Investor is a UK-based investment simulation. Teams of four students manage a virtual £100,000 portfolio across three rounds, competing on a live league table against schools from across the country and beyond. There is no real money involved at any point; everything runs in simulation against actual prices from the London market.

The competition runs with three distinct stages:

• Round one — open to teams worldwide. Teams trade their virtual portfolios and build up a position on the league table. Non-UK teams compete for the International Trader prize and do not progress further.
• Semi-finals — 500 UK teams, four weeks online, with a weekly price-prediction element. Teams’ best three weeks out of four count toward their score.
• National final — eight teams go head to head in live business challenges. The winning team earns a trip to New York.

Read the full rules of the challenge for the detailed mechanics and prize structure.

Before you start: what you need

Getting ready takes a matter of minutes. Before your first session, check you have three things:

1. A Teacher Reference Number (TRN). This is the seven-digit number supplied by LIBF. You use it to register your teams. If you do not have one yet, contact LIBF directly — registration opens before round one begins each year.
2. Students grouped into teams of four. Each team is a unit: they share two portfolios, make decisions together, and appear as one entry on the league table. Think about the mix when you form them (more on that below).
3. One lesson slot per week. You do not need a daily commitment. A standing 20–30 minute slot — or even a lunchtime club — is enough for a team to review their positions and decide their next moves.

That really is the full checklist. The platform, the prices, and the built-in rules do the rest.

Step by step: setting your class up

1. Register your team(s) with your TRN before round one opens. Each group of four students becomes one registered team. You can enter multiple teams from the same class if numbers allow.
2. Form balanced teams. Mixing students who are confident about news and numbers with those who are more cautious makes for richer discussions — and usually better decisions. There is a practical guide to building a team of four that works if you want a structured approach to the split.
3. Introduce the two portfolios. In your first session, walk through the Active Investor and Strategic Investor books together (see the next section). Understanding the difference early saves confusion later.
4. Set a weekly rhythm. A standing slot removes the decision of when to meet. Twenty to thirty minutes, once a week, is enough. Use the first ten minutes to check the league table, spend the middle on one concept or one news story, and leave the last stretch for trading decisions.
5. Let the market do the teaching. After week one, your role shifts. Students watch prices, read news, argue about what to hold, and feel the consequences of their decisions. Your job is mostly to ask “why?” and let them work it out.

There is a ready-made plan for the weekly rhythm in the guide to running the challenge in a single lesson a week.

The two portfolios your teams will run

Every team manages two portfolios side by side, each starting with a virtual £100,000. They are designed to teach different skills, and the contrast between them is one of the most valuable parts of the challenge.

Active Investor

Teams can trade this portfolio every day. The Active book rewards students who follow the market closely, react to earnings announcements, and are willing to make quick decisions. It feels more like what most people imagine “investing” to look like.

Strategic Investor

This portfolio allows only a limited number of trades each month. Teams cannot trade their way out of trouble — they have to think ahead, choose positions carefully, and sit with them. It deliberately rewards patience over reflexes, and often surprises students who assume that more trading means better results.

One rule applies to both portfolios and is worth covering early: the Windfall Tax. If either portfolio holds more than £15,000 in cash, a daily charge of £1,000 applies. The game does not reward sitting on the sidelines — the money needs to be invested. This single mechanic generates more classroom debate than almost anything else, and it is an excellent practical lesson in the opportunity cost of idle cash.

For teams joining after round one has already opened, the starting balance is index-linked to the FTSE 100, so a late start does not automatically put them behind. They begin at the same relative level as everyone else.

How the competition unfolds

Setting expectations at the start of the year helps students stay motivated rather than getting discouraged by a slow first few weeks. Here is how the three stages work in practice:

Stage	Who takes part	What happens
Round one	All registered teams worldwide	Teams trade their portfolios across the full round. Non-UK teams compete for the International Trader prize. UK teams are ranked for semi-final selection.
Semi-finals	500 UK teams	Four-week online stage with a weekly price-prediction challenge. Best three of four weeks count. Results determine the eight finalists.
National final	Eight teams	Live business challenges. The winning team earns the top prize: a trip to New York.

You can follow your team’s position throughout on the live league tables. Checking it together at the start of each session is one of the simplest ways to keep students engaged — seeing a number move (up or down) makes the learning concrete.

Fitting it into your teaching

Student Investor sits naturally alongside a range of subjects without needing a dedicated unit:

• Business studies and economics — supply and demand, company valuation, market news, the role of stock exchanges.
• Mathematics — percentages, ratios, reading a simple table or chart, calculating returns.
• PSHE and financial literacy — budgeting decisions, risk tolerance, the difference between saving and investing.

Low-prep is not a marketing claim: the weekly rhythm described above requires no lesson plan beyond knowing what to ask. If a company in a team’s portfolio releases results that week, the news is the lesson. Students who reach the semi-finals may also become eligible for LIBF’s scholarship recognition and the Principles of Finance pathway — check the prizes page for the current terms, as these are conditional on reaching that stage.

Keeping it safe and educational

A few principles worth covering with your class at the start:

• No real money. Every portfolio is virtual. Students cannot lose or gain actual funds. The experience is a simulation, not a brokerage account.
• Not financial advice. Student Investor teaches how markets work in principle. Discussing a company’s share price in class is not the same as recommending anyone buy or sell it. Make that distinction explicit, especially if students ask about investing their own money.
• The goal is understanding, not profit. Celebrate good reasoning, not just good results. A team that made a well-argued trade that happened to go against them has learned more than a team that guessed lucky.

The footer on every Student Investor page says it plainly: “Educational simulation. Not financial advice.” That is the spirit of the whole competition.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know about investing to run this?

No. Student Investor is designed so the game teaches through play. Your role is to facilitate discussion and ask questions, not to explain markets from scratch. The simulation does that for you.

How much time does it take each week?

Roughly one 20–30 minute slot per week is enough to keep teams engaged through round one. There is no daily obligation for the teacher.

How many students are in each team?

Four. A teacher registers each team of four students using their seven-digit Teacher Reference Number supplied by LIBF.

Does it cost the students real money?

No. Each team manages a virtual portfolio of £100,000. No real money is involved at any point. Student Investor is an educational simulation, not financial advice.