Intent

Almost everyone will work for an organisation so the study of how they operate is always relevant, whether you go into a business related job or not. You may wish to set up your own business and you will learn many of the skills to do so. Many students continue their studies at University and go on to jobs in, for example, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, and Operations. The Business Studies department aims to equip our students with these skills so they can carry them through to adult life.

Implementation

In Business Studies, offered from the beginning of year 10, we follow the OCR GCSE 9-1 Specification.  We lay the foundations early on by building on students’ knowledge of business types, stakeholders and Business Objectives.  We then use this knowledge throughout the course when students study the main functional areas of business as well as gaining an overview of how business is affected by many of the biggest issues in the world today such as globalisation, ethics and the environment.

Students who choose to study Business in the sixth form at The Beaconsfield School will follow the AQA Applied Business L3 course.  This applied course allows students to develop their own business ideas and explore their entrepreneurial skills in order to equip them with many of the attributes needed to start their own enterprise or continue to study Business at university. 

Impact

Impact is regularly checked with low stakes testing throughout the department.  This allows students to get instant feedback on areas of strength and weakness and put strategies in place to plug any gaps in knowledge.  We also use assessment weeks and mock exams in order to give students opportunities to practice for exam elements of our courses and provide detailed question-level feedback.  Intervention is then put in place throughout the department to help students to address skills gaps.  In the lead up to internal and external exams each student, with teacher support, will complete a Personalised Learning Checklist to help them to identify areas for development and plan individual and focussed revision that will be tailored to their own specific needs.