Turning your classroom into a makeshift tech start-up hub probably isn’t at the top of most teachers’ agendas.

But it was certainly something I wanted to do back in those heady days when planning the week ahead as an early-career teacher on a Sunday evening, with Dragons’ Den in the background. 

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Not only could I cover a bunch of ICT (as it was then) objectives, but I could include design and technology objectives, too.

Inspired by a task I’d heard about at a local conference, I decided to turn my afternoons over to the children running their own companies with a series of structured tasks.

Dreaming-up ideas

We started by using the first afternoon to talk about our favourite games. I have always been an advocate of trying to sneak your hobbies into your teaching - and this seemed as good an excuse as any. 

From this, teams were established and time was spent looking at existing logos and brand names that they could use as inspiration for their own business to launch in our start-up hub (aka the classroom).

Next, a concept for a game was needed. Children had to draw on their knowledge of addictive and simple games, like Flappy Bird, as a basis for their own ideas. 

Then came a series of character and background design afternoons to allow them to upload their own designs to the Sketch Nation app, which allows you to easily make simple - but very real - app games.

Future tycoons

By now, the pupils had completely bought into it. 

They were running companies, not just doing a collection of random drawings and playing computer games. Most had thought carefully about their consumers and the experience their game would give them, including rewards, purchases and target audiences.

I even allowed them a small marketing budget (also known as limited access to the photocopier and laminator) so they could build some hype for their games around the community. Catchy straplines were invented, too. 

Of course, we then had to create and test the games before finally unleashing them on the other classes for some market research, which led into our maths sessions.

The project culminated in a reality-TV style pitch. Children had a couple of afternoons to produce their final PowerPoint presentation and speeches.

With varying success and confidence, pupils were able to talk through their ideas from concept to creation, and all of them had clearly put a lot of thought and effort into their start-ups. Criteria were given for the judging and we celebrated by playing the games we’d invested our time creating.

Billion-pound pupils

What was so interesting was to see how adding the real-world elements of audience, brand building and entrepreneurialism really helped the idea to take off.

This isn’t to say it was all plain sailing - it still required careful management and resourcing but certainly nothing that made the idea a “never again” experience.

While I may be looking back on this with rose-tinted glasses, I feel as if I could have gone a lot further, too.

There’s a much bigger industry now than there was back then. More careers, more outlets and more people to contact online through Twitter for real-world feedback. 

What’s more, there are so many new game-building apps and advice - and children who have come through the computing curriculum will have greater skills in coding that could lead to genuinely fun, novel and interesting games being developed.   

Who knows, your class may end up being responsible for a million-pound - nay billion-pound - idea in the future.