Activity 1: Jobs in the sector
Time: 15 mins if brainstorming or 45 mins if creating a picture board/word cloud
Age group: Key Stage 3, 4
Gatsby Benchmark: 2
CDI Learning outcomes: 1, 4, 7

Activity 2: Research Task
Time: 1 hour + time for presentation
Age group: From Year 8
Resources: ‘Activity 2: Research Task’ and access to IT and websites
Gatsby Benchmark: 2
CDI Learning Outcomes: 3, 4, 5, 7, 14

Activity 3: Business Turnaround Plan
Time: 2-3 hours (14-19 Yr)
Gatsby benchmark: 2, 5 (4 Business Studies, Maths, English)
CDI learning outcomes: 3, 6, 12, 13, 15, 17

Resources & Outcomes: See the 'Teacher Notes for Activities 1-3' document

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Lesson Summary: (This appears as the introduction on the student version of this page)

Suffolk is home to one of the largest financial services and insurance sector outside London with hundreds of insurance companies, accountancy firms, branches for banking services and building societies, providing financial advisory services.

There are niche markets around marine insurance linked to the county’s ports, farm and crop insurance and thatched property insurance in rural areas, plus a host of small financial service businesses.

Suffolk has an seen a significant increase in the number of finance and insurance businesses taking advantage of relatively cheap property costs and wages, easy access to London, good availability of related training and education plus an experienced workforce. LV decided to expand their workforce in Ipswich explicitly because of the skills available locally, while Willis has recently moved several operations out of London to Ipswich because of the savings in operating costs.

Small and medium-sized firms continue to expand, capitalising on the large pool of insurance talent in Ipswich and there has been a growth in new micro businesses in financial and related services - often being set up by experienced employees made redundant from larger firms.

Suffolk has an extensive pool of experienced people to draw upon in insurance and finance. The county continues to develop the future workforce by offering work experience and opportunities for 16-24 year olds including apprenticeships, internships, work pairings, college and workplace training places.

Companies in this sector operating across Suffolk include:

Willis, Kaplan Financial, MHA Larking Gowen, LV Group, Ipswich Building Society, Baker Tilly and Scrutton Bland.

• This lesson consists of three activities which you should work through with guidance from your teacher and any supporting documents provided
• The Activities themselves are directly below in the Activities > Activity Documents section
• Any further critical information or worksheets that you may need are included in the Lesson Resources > Supporting Documents section   
• A selection of other resources are also included to help you expand your knowledge of the construction sector and the careers opportunities it offers
• This lesson contains a virtual tour of Ipswich Building Society!  Be sure to load it up and have a look around.  Some of the people can be clicked on to hear their stories!
• Don't forget that icanbea... has information about the Financial Services sector and the local organisations that operate within it

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If you want to send this lesson to your students, you should point them to the Student Version of this page which omits the teacher notes: https://www.icanbea.org.uk/app/my-page/templates/39/