At the BPA 2025 China (CBPA) Competition, our students won the national silver and bronze awards, making a big splash on the domestic stage, and successfully won the precious key to the world stage - the precious ticket to the global finals.
BPA (Business Professionals of America) business all-around academic activities, is the U.S. Department of Education (USED) and the Career Planning Education Association (CTSO) official certification of the world's top middle school business competition, with FBLA, DECA and known as the “U.S. business trio! “Since its inception in 1966, the BBA has been the world's top business competition for middle school students. Since its inception in 1966, BPA has attracted more than 45,000 students from all over the world to participate in the competition every year. Its academic system and achievements are highly recognized by famous companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Hilton, etc., and it also provides participants with the opportunity to have in-depth interactions with Fortune 500 companies.
Students “cosplay” as CEOs of sports companies
This year's BPA 2025 Competition in China, centered on the profound and dynamic theme of “Sports, The Way We Live”, provides a broad stage for participants to demonstrate their wisdom and innovation. On this stage, participants were given the challenging role of CEO of a sports company, whose task is to skillfully integrate the cutting-edge and important concept of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) into the strategic planning of the company, and to explore the way of harmonious coexistence between sports and sustainable development.
It is this deep understanding and persistent pursuit of the ESG concept that made the students show extraordinary creativity and strength in this competition. They successfully integrated the ESG concept into their corporate strategies, and even showed the world the beautiful vision of combining sports and sustainable development as the CEO of a sports company. This effort and achievement won high praise from the judges and earned our school the national silver and bronze awards, as well as a valuable opportunity to the global finals.
“Teacher, I have a new idea.”
The topic of this issue is “Sports and Business”, which is a theme full of challenges and opportunities, aiming to explore the infinite possibilities between sports and business intelligence. In order to allow students to explore this theme in depth, fully prepare and show their creativity and strength, the teacher invested a lot of energy in the whole preparation process, and carefully designed a brainstorming session for each group of students, in order to stimulate their business inspiration and collide with more brilliant business ideas.
The teacher arranged a series of brainstorming sessions. In each session, students were encouraged to speak freely and share their unique insights and creative ideas on the theme of “Sports and Business”. According to the guidance of the teacher, the students thought about the problems from different angles, such as how to integrate the spirit of sports into the brand culture, how to use digital means to enhance the enjoyment and interactivity of sports events, and how to achieve win-win situation through cross-border cooperation, etc. In the meetings, I also often suggested that the students should be more creative in their ideas. During the meetings, I also often ask some inspiring questions to guide the students to think deeply and keep expanding the boundaries of their thinking.
Through this series of brainstorming and training, students gained rich business knowledge and practical experience, and developed their innovative thinking and teamwork skills. Their business plans gradually became clear and concrete from the initial vague concepts, full of creativity and feasibility.
Practical application of biliteracy and trilingualism
BPA 2025 China (CBPA) is not only an exciting business challenge, but also an invaluable platform for students to improve themselves and develop themselves holistically. This process makes the ability to speak in a foreign language an indispensable skill. In order to stand out on the international stage, students need to acquire a solid foundation in the language and learn how to use authentic expressions, clear logical structures and strong arguments to support their points of view.
To this end, the school and its teachers have strengthened language training for students, including regular speech practice in foreign languages, simulation competitions and one-on-one coaching, with the aim of helping students to overcome language barriers and increase their self-confidence so that they can present themselves on the international stage.
In order to enhance the expression of professional knowledge in foreign languages, teachers provide students with rich curriculum resources and practice opportunities. Through these studies and practices, students not only mastered solid theoretical knowledge, but also learned how to apply this knowledge to real situations and solve practical problems.
We gained a lot from this competition. The knowledge we learned before the competition and the experience we gained from the competition were our biggest rewards. And along the way, we encountered many difficulties, but they were overcome by us: that is, we had to do the preparation of the speech script and division of labor. Because this competition speech is to be presented in English, but still through constant practice to the script and response to the problem of proficiency, there is another difficulty is that we are in the preparation of the speech of the unexpected situation, the cue word is not qualified, but because of our full preparation so that we finally took the national silver medal. At the same time, when we were preparing in school, our teacher prompted us with the imperfections of our initial ideas, guided us to make more creative business ideas, and answered many of our academic questions, so that we were well prepared to complete this competition.
It was our first time to participate in such a large-scale tournament, and the whole process was full of fun and challenges. During the competition, I deeply realized the importance of business economy. Before entering the venue, the contestants practiced their speeches over and over again outside the venue, and a tense atmosphere pervaded us. Until we entered the venue and saw the rows of judges, that nervousness reached its peak. However, when we opened our PPTs and started our presentations, the judges said “wow, puppy league” - the name of our company. At that moment, we felt an expectant gaze, which greatly eased our nerves.
In the next speech, we played very well! Of course, this could not be separated from our full preparation. From the time we decided on the subjects to the day of the competition, although it was only a short period of five months, we made a detailed time plan at the beginning. Although we postponed our plans for a while due to our busy academic schedules, we finally finished the sixth lesson and the fourth exhibition a few days before the competition.
We were under tremendous pressure during that time, but in the end the work paid off. When we saw the words our team on the screen, a sense of pride came over us. Those words seemed to emanate light and shoot straight to the heart. Amidst the admiration of the people around me, I couldn't help but think back to the hard work we had done along the way, and the silent support of the school and teachers behind the scenes. I thank the school and teachers for giving us this precious opportunity.
What we should be feeling about this CBPA competition is perhaps a sense of celebration. After all, HAT had already participated in the previous year's competition, and compared to the past, we didn't have the same dazzling results in the preliminary rounds, nor did we have as much time for the three of us to get together and spend half of the evening going over the details.
We can do it, just everyone's best. As the planner of the team and the writer of this article, I have tried to lose my temper during PPT, and I have also woken up in the middle of the night remembering that I haven't copied the pictures yet, such a daily routine will really make people feel exhausted, but the group chat that is still active in the late night will at least tell me that I am not alone in the struggle. There are at least two other people clunking ideas at me.
A few words on paper cannot express our gratitude. All we can do is to make sure that the result is not less than satisfactory. So we're not proud of the awards, nor do we mourn the status quo of the alternates. We will forge ahead to reach the global stage, and give our team and our work a Happy Ending!
It is an honor to share our team's experience in preparing for the CBPA Nationals. These two months of preparation were like a long, stumbling run, and it was the result of the team's perseverance and mutual support that we were finally able to win the Bronze Medal.
We set up three “musts”: we must synchronize our progress every day, we must solve our differences on the same day, and we must ask our instructor to check each version of the plan. I remember the night before the finals, some members of the team could not sleep at night, and woke up at 4:00 a.m. to practice their drafts, and although their eyes were sore, their hearts were especially solid. This experience made us realize that real growth does not lie in the number of problems solved, but in the courage not to run away when facing difficulties. Thank you for the support from the school, the patience of the teachers, and the trust of our teammates. This bronze medal is the best souvenir for this special experience.
