Sital Ruparelia

Below is a guest article written by my 11 year old nephew, Nikhil.

He recently spent his school holiday attending the ‘Fun With Finance’ course run by The Cool Heads Company in London. The innovative course helps children learn about money and the world of finance – but in a fun and interactive way. Playing games, competitions, watching videos, touring the City of London.

Nikhil loves new experiences and meeting new people so, unsurprisingly, he came back from the course buzzing with enthusiasm and ideas. Knowing how creative he is and loves a bit of a challenge, I suggested he write a short story about he’s ’Fun With Finance’ week and I’d publish it here on my blog.

Without hesitation, he agreed. Then went off and wrote the summary below almost straight away!

I’m very proud to say the article below is straight from our young author and completely unedited. Well done Niks!

My ‘Fun With Finance’ Week
By Nikhil

During the February half-term school holiday, I embarked on a course where I was to learn all about finance.

On Monday when I got there, there were only two people there. I played Top Trumps. When everyone else arrived we started off by playing a game.

There was a government box, a bank’s box, and a business box! We had to throw balls from box to box to show how the economy works! Then we watched a few videos. After lunch we learned about how to pick shares, assets and liabilities and bulls and bears.

On Tuesday, we visited the Bank of England. We had a tour, a treasure hunt and had to try and pick up a 13kg gold bar.

On Wednesday, we firstly had to design our own currencies. I called mine “Chillos!” We then worked in groups to come up with our own business idea. We had to present it to the ‘Witches Den’ board – 2 woman.

On Thursday, we visited the Museum of Banking & Advertising. We had a treasure hunt. We then visited Marks & Spencer.

On Friday, we had a fake board meeting. We then had to make up our own newspaper about finance for kids! Finally we played ‘Who Wants to Be a Zillionaire’ – Boys Vs Girls. The boys won.

Over the week, we heard some very interesting career talks. Bankers, architects and journalists came. I enjoyed the week thoroughly and I wish I could go every day.

————————-

Having already had a brief mention in the Sunday Observer after the course, Nikhil is well and truly enjoying he’s ’15 minutes of fame’ by being interviewed on BBC Radio 5 this Wednesday 11th March at 10.30am. He’s due to talk about the course and what he learned about finance and money.

To learn more about the course, go to the The Cool Head Company website.