The Business School — Live A-Level Business Simulation for Classrooms
For Heads For Teachers Curriculum Licensing Resources FAQ Join the waitlist Department case
A-Level · BTEC · IGCSE Business
Autumn 2026 pilot cohort — full (30/30 schools). Waitlist open.

Your students run rival firms — live, in one lesson.

A browser-based business simulation where up to eight student teams compete in one market: pricing, VAT, hiring, investment and boardroom deals. Every decision is mapped to the Edexcel specification. No install — students join with a PIN.

Or try the demo now: play.thebusiness.school

Up to 32 students
In 8 rival teams
Flexible length
You set the pace
Edexcel-mapped
Every decision
Projector view — live
4 7 2 9 1 3Join at play.thebusiness.school
8 firms trading
Phase 2 of 3 · 06:14 left
Leaderboard
1Apex Cafés£41,250
2Brewbox£38,900
3Harbour Coffee£36,700
4Meridian Coffee£35,600
5Roast & Co.£31,450
Market share · Office Coffee
Apex28%
Brewbox22%
Harbour17%
Meridian14%
Others19%
Brewbox undercut the market on Office Coffee — Apex just lost a contract to them.
A-Level · BTEC · IGCSE Business

The Business School

Live classroom business simulation

Your students run rival firms — live, in one lesson. Pricing, VAT, hiring and boardroom deals, with every decision mapped to the Edexcel specification. No install — students join with a PIN.

Autumn 2026 pilot cohort — full (30/30 schools). Waitlist open.
Projector view — live
4 7 2 9 1 3Join at play.thebusiness.school
8 firms trading
Phase 2 of 3 · {{ phaseTimer }} left
Leaderboard
{{ f.rank }}{{ f.name }}{{ f.cash }}
Market share · Office Coffee
{{ s.name }}{{ s.pct }}
{{ tickerText }}
Edexcel 9BS0 mapped Works for AQA 7132 / 8132 BTEC & IGCSE Real UK context · £ · VAT · HMRC Built by TBS Education Ltd Oy
New
Founder's Hour · a one-lesson companion

One hour. Ten justified answers each. You see who to help next.

A level Business marks are won on written argument over data, and that is exactly where students lose them: analysis and evaluation. In one lesson your students found and run a London café and defend ten decisions in their own words, against their own numbers. Vic, our AI mentor, coaches every answer to AO1 to AO4, and you walk out with a report that names your class's weakest skill, whose evaluation is thin, before the exam does.

A solo companion to the live multi-firm sim above. That autumn pilot is full; this one you can start today, no waitlist, no install, on any browser including phones.

Get your pilot now Try the demo first One lesson · about 60 to 75 min · A level (Edexcel/AQA/OCR) · the skill BTEC M&D is won on · GCSE stretch
Two people, two questions

Whether you choose it or teach it, start here

The person who selects a resource and the person who runs the lesson need different proof. Pick your door.

For Heads of Department & SLT

Lift results. Evidence engagement. Fit the budget.

You decide what the department adopts.

  • Every decision mapped to the Edexcel specification — audit it point by point
  • Rehearses exam technique — analysis, evaluation and judgement under pressure
  • Ready post-16 engagement evidence for observations and reviews
  • Licensed per school, per year — never per seat — with a low-risk free pilot first
See the department case
For Classroom Teachers

Zero setup. Real engagement. Exam-relevant.

You run it with a full class on a Tuesday.

  • No install, no logins — students join with a PIN in seconds
  • Flexible length — set each phase to fit any lesson slot
  • The live dashboard grades for you, with student and class reports
  • Aligned to what you already teach — not edutainment
See how a lesson runs
The simulation

Real business decisions — not a quiz

Up to eight teams run rival firms in one shared market. Every choice affects the competition, live — and every choice is doing exam work.

What students doWhat it teaches

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Inside the simulation

The real screens your students will use

Not mockups — screenshots from the live simulation at play.thebusiness.school.

play.thebusiness.school — Choose how you join
Join screen: choose your role — teacher with a Game PIN, student joining by PIN, or free solo practice
Joining takes seconds — teachers create a session, students enter the PIN, or run a free solo practiceNo account · any device
Launch Product screen: students set a price and pitch for their service
Pricing a product — list a service on the marketplace and price it against rivals
HMRC Portal screen: students file a 20% VAT return before the deadline
VAT & compliance — file 20% UK VAT through an HMRC-style portal, with real consequences for filing late
Investments screen: live share price history, properties and equities with buy and sell actions
Finance & investment — live-ticking equities, property yields and loan decisions
Personal Learning Report: automatic per-student results, strengths and development areas
Automatic reports — every student gets a personal learning report; no marking pile-up
Live Chat and Boardroom Deals: negotiation channels and one-attempt deal scenarios
Live chat & boardroom deals — teams negotiate in real time and face one-attempt deal scenarios
Hiring Auction: specialists like Marketing Manager, Sales Manager, Developer and Legal Counsel
Hiring — recruit specialists with real trade-offs, from a Sales Manager to a Legal Counsel retainer
Sabotage: CEO-authorised competitive actions with real-world case examples
Competitive actions — CEO-authorised moves drawn from real cases; a hired Legal Counsel blocks them
Objectives and achievements: bonus capital for listings, deals, VAT compliance and revenue milestones
Objectives & achievements — bonus capital for first listings, closed deals and on-time VAT returns
Try it yourself — play.thebusiness.school

Solo practice mode, free — no PIN, no licence, about 20 minutes.

In one lesson

Running it is three steps

1

Start a session

Log in, set each phase length, and get a 6-digit PIN. Put the big-screen leaderboard on the projector with one click.

2

Students join

They open the link on any device, type the PIN, and up to eight teams form automatically — every firm gets a CEO.

3

You steer, it scores

Pace the phases, trigger an event, watch the live board. At the end: automatic grades, reports and certificates.

After every session

Every student gets personal feedback

When the simulation ends, each student receives an AI-generated report based on their actual decisions — not a generic score. Plus a printable certificate with their grade.

Strength

What they did well

Specific decisions where the student excelled — pricing moves, negotiation wins, timely VAT filings or smart investments.

Focus

One area to improve

A single, focused insight tied to an actual choice they made. Concrete and actionable — never a generic critique.

Momentum

Encouragement to keep going

Personalised motivation that reflects their journey, written to build confidence and curiosity for the next session.

Why Heads trust it

Every decision carries its exam code

Students see a plain theme label. Open the teacher view and each decision shows its exact Edexcel 9BS0 sub-code. It maps to what you already teach, so it counts as curriculum time — not time away from it.

Download the full mapping (PDF)
Set your price for Office CoffeeEdexcel 1.3
File your VAT returnEdexcel 2.3
Win the contract vs rivalsEdexcel 1.2 · 3.5
Choose a growth strategyEdexcel 3.2

Student layer · Teacher / Pearson layer

Our story

Built from a real lesson no classroom ever taught

That one mistake led to €8,400 in debt recovery. No teacher, no textbook and no careers advisor had ever mentioned it could happen.

A growing share of students already run a side hustle by sixth form. Social media has made entrepreneurship feel easy — but nobody teaches the financial fundamentals that make or break a young business.

What if students could make those mistakes safely, before they cost real money? That question became The Business School.

“At 17, I organised large-scale events, took real financial risks — and learned the hard way what happens when you miss a tax return.”

Founder, TBS Education Ltd Oy · Lahti, Finland

Proudly built in Finland — where pedagogy is founded on trust, equality and learning by doing.

Technical details

Built for the classroom — no IT department required

Browser-based

Works on any device with a modern browser — phones, tablets, laptops, Chromebooks. No downloads, plugins or installations.

Zero student accounts

Students join with a PIN. No email addresses, no passwords, no data collection from minors.

Instant setup

Create a session and have students playing within about a minute — a PIN is generated instantly.

School Wi-Fi compatible

Lightweight data usage, compatible with filtered school networks.

Cloud-hosted in the EU

Sessions are managed server-side and scale to a full class of simultaneous students.

School filter needs a whitelist entry? Get the IT one-sheet — domains, ports and requirements on one printable page.

Questions

What teachers ask first

Is it free for teachers?＋

The teacher demo is free — no credit card and no student accounts. Licensing is per school (or per MAT), per year, with a free classroom pilot before any commitment.

Which specifications does it map to?＋

Every decision is tagged to the Edexcel A-Level Business specification (9BS0), shown two ways: a plain theme label for students and the exact sub-code for teachers. It also works as an applied activity for AQA (7132 / 8132), BTEC and IGCSE Business. The full mapping is on the Curriculum page.

Do students need to install anything or make accounts?＋

No. It runs in any browser. Students open the link and join with a 6-digit PIN — nothing to download, no logins to manage.

How many students, and how long does it take?＋

Up to 32 students in up to 8 teams. Length is flexible — you set a timer for each of the three phases, so a session can fit a short lesson or run longer, and phases can auto-advance so it never stalls.

What does the teacher see and control?＋

A live control panel: start and pace the phases, trigger events, watch firm standings, and put a big-screen leaderboard on the projector. Afterwards you get automatic grades, student and class reports, and certificates.

Join the waitlist

Our autumn pilot is full. Join the waitlist for the next round and we'll be in touch when places open. No install, no student accounts, UK curriculum control.

Or try the demo now: play.thebusiness.school