Curriculum – Business Studies

Curriculum – Business Studies

Business Studies

The Curriculum

Curriculum Intent

Business is a constantly evolving and stimulating subject to study at Southend High School for Girls. It is hugely applicable to the world around us.   It is a vibrant, stimulating and ‘real time’ subject which will engage and challenge students, whether they are new to the subject in Years 10 and 12, or are building on their GCSE Business skills learned prior to joining the SHSG Sixth Form.  We aim to develop questioning and open-minded students who understand the challenges of a modern dynamic business environment and begin to develop as commercially minded, enterprising individuals.  Business students will begin to appreciate the importance of decision-making; encouraging students to think critically about varied local, national, and global issues.  We offer a rich curriculum that will inspire our students to achieve strong academic outcomes and develop a range of transferrable skills including creativity, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork.  We aim to empower our students to grow into independent, innovative, and driven learners and help them succeed in their chosen pathway.

We want our students to develop a passion for studying Business; gain a holistic understanding of business in a range of contexts; develop a critical understanding of organisations and their ability to meet society’s needs and wants; understand that business behaviour can be studied from a range of perspectives; generate enterprising and creative approaches to business opportunities, problems, and issues; be aware of the ethical dilemmas and responsibilities faced by organisations and individuals; and acquire a range of relevant and generic skills including problem-solving and decision making.  We want our student to challenge assumptions, use critical analysis, and apply numerical skills in a range of business contexts.  The study of business introduces learners to the importance of entrepreneurial activity in creating business opportunities and sustaining business growth.  Learners will have the opportunity to study with like-minded students and staff in a positive environment to develop a wide range of essential life-long skills required for higher education and employment.  We hope to nurture a love the subject that inspires our students to push the boundaries of learning and thought in all aspects of their life.

What does it feel like to be a student in the Business Studies Department?

Business at Southend High School for Girls is as rewarding as it is challenging.  The world of business is wonderfully complex.  You will engage with the world of business through the context of current business developments and real business situations. You will learn how management, leadership, and decision-making can improve performance in marketing, operational, financial, and human resources. You will also explore the interrelated nature of business activities and how they affect businesses, be they large or small, UK or global. You will learn how to analyse competitive environments and markets; assess how ethical, environmental, and technological factors influence decision making; use a range of quantitative and non-quantitative data to evaluate strategic and functional options; understand how decision made affect stakeholders and how they will respond.  You will also develop your critical analysis, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.

You will be able to use the knowledge and skills gained on this course in a range of business and management fields, and across many areas of study and professions.  Studying business opens many options for you at university, and there are many courses available with permutations of business, management, administration, accounting, and finance.  In recent years, the SHSG Business department has prepared students for courses at university as well as apprenticeships with global institutions and our students have typically progressed post-university to careers in areas such as business development, marketing, recruitment, and banking.

You will be expected to immerse yourself in a business-like mindset and to pay attention to the world around you. For example, business is full of people searching for new ways to add value.  Opportunity cost plays a crucial role in every sale a business makes – added value only starts when opportunity cost is defeated.  How is it done?  You will have a way of seeing the world that makes you stand out from other students.  You will be able to converse in an informed way on some of the biggest challenges facing your generation.  By the end of the course, you will be able to discuss and articulate different perspectives on a wide range of business issues, thinking evaluatively about the approaches that have been adopted, and innovatively about alternative solutions.  You will be able to see a balance in situations, weighing up competing arguments, and seeing different viewpoints.  Ultimately, you will be aiming to be a well-informed, independent thinker who is equipped for whatever your future direction might be and are prepared to have a life-long relationship with the world of business.

Journey

Business Studies Curriculum

Knowing more, remembering more, and achieving more in Business

At Southend High School for Girls, we teach a curriculum that is ambitious and takes students on a learning journey beyond the GCSE specification for Business.  The SHSG Business curriculum is what we believe will expose and challenge students to a cultural capital in Business that is the best that has been thought and said in this subject.

We follow the Edexcel Business GCSE syllabus as students can engage with the world of business through the context of current business developments and real business situations.  Students will apply business concepts to familiar and unfamiliar contexts including businesses ranging from small enterprises to large multinationals and businesses operating in local, national, and global contexts.  Students will develop an understanding of how these contexts impact on business behaviour and use business terminology to identify and explain business activity.

Assessment objectives:

To enable students to:

  • Know and understand business concepts, business terminology, business objectives, the integrated nature of business activity and the impact of business on individuals and wider society
  • Apply knowledge and understanding to contemporary business issues and to different types and sizes of businesses in local, national, and global contexts
  • Develop as enterprising individuals with the ability to think commercially and creatively to demonstrate business acumen, and draw on evidence to make informed business decisions and solve business problems
  • Develop as effective and independent students, and as critical and reflective thinkers with enquiring minds
  • Use an enquiring, critical approach to make informed judgements
  • Investigate and analyse real business opportunities and issues to construct well-argued, well-evidenced, balanced and structured arguments, demonstrating their depth and breadth of understanding of business
  • Develop and apply quantitative skills relevant to business, including using and interpreting data

The Business curriculum is planned and delivered using the intellectual framework of the classical education model, the Trivium:

  • Grammar (Knowledge and skills) knowledge, learning by heart, subject terminology, cultural capital
  • Dialectic (Enquiry and exploration) debate, question, challenge, analyse, evaluate
  • Rhetoric (Communication) essays, speeches, performances, presentations

Pre-requisite or helpful knowledge from Years 7 – 9 ready to study in Year 10 if applicable
N/A

Adjustments from the Pandemic for years 10 – 11 if applicable?

  • Adjustment to curriculum to build in theme 1 topics to Year 11 in response to missed classroom-based time in Year 11
  • Support available at regular targeted intervention and business clinic sessions throughout the year 11.

The topics below have been chosen as they reflect the Edexcel GCSE syllabus and ambitions of a Grammar school.  They have been carefully sequenced in this order to build a student’s learning journey to achieve the aims of our business curriculum intent. Synoptic links are made between topics. Along the way students are assessed and topics will be revisited in assessments to keep each stage of this learning journey alive.

Year 10

Term 1

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 1 enterprise and entrepreneurship

  • What is a business?
  • Business ideas
  • The dynamic nature of business
  • Risk and reward
  • The role of business enterprise

Theme 1, topic 2 spotting a business opportunity

  • Customer needs
  • Market research
  • Market segmentation
  • Market mapping
  • The competitive environment

Assessment

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of half term assessment

Term 2

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 4 making the business effective

  • The options for a start-up and small business
  • Limited liability
  • Business ownership
  • Business location

Assessment

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of half term assessment

Term 3

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 5 understanding the economic context

  • Stakeholders
  • Technology and business
  • Employment and the law
  • Consumer law
  • Introduction to the economy and business
  • Preparation for PUP exam

Assessment

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

PUP exam May including extended 12-mark question

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 3 putting a business idea into practice

  • Business aims and objectives
  • Costs and revenues
  • Profit and break-even
  • Cash flow
  • Sources of finance

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of term assessment

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 4 making the business effective

  • The marketing mix for small business
  • The marketing mix
  • Business plans

 

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of term assessment

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business

Theme 1, topic 5 understanding the economic context

  • Unemployment
  • Government taxes
  • Inflation
  • Interest rates
  • Exchange rates
  • Business cycle
  • External influences

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of term assessment

Summer work

Consolidation  work on topics 1 – 5

Year 11

Term 1

Theme 2 Building a Business

Theme 2, topic 1 growing the business

  • Business growth
  • Economies of scale
  • Sources of finance for big business
  • Changes in aims and objectives
  • Globalisation
  • Ethical considerations
  • Environmental influences

Theme 2, topic 2 making marketing decisions

  • The marketing and design mix
  • Product life cycles
  • Extension strategies

Continued

Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

Term 2

Theme 2 Building a Business

Continued

Theme 2, topic 3 making operational decisions

  • Methods of production
  • Technology and production
  • Managing stock
  • Managing stock and suppliers
  • Working with suppliers
  • Quality, quality control and quality assurance
  • The sales process
  • Preparation for PPE2

Continued

Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

PPE 2 including extended 12- mark question February

Term 3

Theme 2 Building a Business

Theme 2, topic 5 making human resource decisions

  • Ways of working
  • Recruitment
  • Training and development

Continued

Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended 12- mark question

Theme 2 Building a Business

Theme 2, topic 2 making marketing decisions

  • Product
  • Price and pricing strategies
  • Promotion and promotional strategies
  • Place
  • Preparation for PPE1

Continued

Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

PPE 1 November

End of term assessment including extended 12-mark question

Theme 2 Building a Business

Theme 2, topic 4 making financial decisions

  • Business calculations
  • Business data
  • Business data and performance

Theme 2, topic 5 making human resource decisions

  • Internal organisational structures
  • Communication
  • Motivation

Continued

Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content

Assessment

Interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12-mark questions)

End of term assessment including extended 12-mark question

Theme 1 Investigating Small Business and Theme 2 Building a Business

  •  Revisiting of Year 10, theme 1 content
  • Revisiting of Year 11, theme 2 content
  • Paper 1 & 2 examination preparation

GCSE examination end of May and June

Achieving mastery in Business – knowing and remembering even more than what is expected in a grammar school Business GCSE curriculum, developing sophisticated application, analysis and evaluation skills. Writing in a successful academic writing style

Our assessment practice at SHSG reflects on how successful students have been in knowing, remembering, and doing more through the above topics, as well as consistently achieving the highest band in the Business GCSE assessment criteria.

To go beyond being proficient in what is expected of a SHSG business GCSE student in Year 10 and 11 and achieve mastery in Business, students should read widely including keeping up to date with news and current affairs.  Students will have a confident understanding and use of key concepts and subject specific terminology. 

Recommended reading in Business GCSE

Principal Course Text

Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Business, second edition, paperback – March 2017, Ian Marcouse

  • Broadsheet newspapers – available in library or online
  • The Business Book (Big Ideas) Edited from various contributors, 2014
  • The Essence of Success: 12 Mini Biographies Includes Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Steven Spielberg, Stephen Hawking, Chris Evans, Frank Sinatra, Tony Blair, Imran Khan, Malcolm X, James Dyson, Margaret Thatcher, 2014
  • The Entrepreneur’s Book of Checklists: 1000 Tips to Help You Start and Grow Your Business Robert Ashton
  • What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography Lord Alan Sugar
  • She Means Business Carrie Green
  • Anyone Can Do It: My Story Duncan Bannatyne

Useful websites Business GCSE (Years 10 – 11)

Business-specific language to master in Business GCSE

  • All required technical terminology can be found in notes from class and glossary in the textbooks. Students are encouraged to create a glossary of key terms
  • Key concepts to understand for extended writing: application, analysis, evaluation

At Southend High School for Girls, we teach a curriculum that is ambitious and takes students on a learning journey beyond the A-level specification for Business.  The SHSG Business curriculum is what we believe will expose and challenge students to a cultural capital in Business that is the best that has been thought and said in this subject.

We follow the Edexcel Business A-level syllabus as students can engage with the world of business through the context of current business developments and real business situations.  Studying how management, leadership, and decision making can improve performance in marketing, operational, and human resources.  Exploring the interrelated nature of business activities and how they affect businesses, be they large or small, UK or internationally focussed, and in different sectors such as service or manufacturing.

Assessment objectives: 

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of terms, concepts, theories, methods, and models to show an understanding of how individuals and organisations are affected by and respond to business issues.
  2. Apply knowledge and understanding to various business contexts to show how individuals and organisations are affect by and respond to issues.
  3. Analyse issues within business, showing an understanding of the impact on individuals and organisations of external and internal influences.
  4. Evaluate qualitative and quantitative evidence to make informed judgements and propose evidence-based solutions to business issues.

The Business curriculum is planned and delivered using the intellectual framework of the classical education model, the Trivium:

  • Grammar (Knowledge and skills) knowledge, learning by heart, subject terminology, cultural capital
  • Dialectic (Enquiry and exploration) debate, question, challenge, analyse, evaluate
  • Rhetoric (Communication) essays, speeches, performances, presentations

Helpful knowledge for study in Year 12 – not a pre-requisite

  • GCSE Business
  • GCSE Economics

Adjustments from the Pandemic for years 12-13 if applicable?

  • Adjustment to curriculum to build in theme 1 & 2 topics to Year 13 in response to missed classroom-based time in Year 12.
  • Support available at regular targeted intervention and business clinic sessions throughout the year.

The topics below have been chosen as they reflect the Edexcel A-level syllabus and ambitions of a Grammar school.  They have been carefully sequenced in this order to build a student’s learning journey to achieve the aims of our business curriculum intent. Synoptic links are made between topics. Along the way students are assessed and topics will be revisited in assessments to keep each stage of this learning journey alive.

Year 12

Term 1

Theme 1 Marketing and People

Theme 1, topic 1 meeting customer needs

  • What is a market
  • Mass, niche, and dynamic markets
  • Product and market orientation
  • Methods, uses, and limitations of market research
  • Market segmentation
  • Market positioning

Theme 1, topic 2 the market

  • Introduction to demand
  • Factors influencing demand and movement along and shifts of the demand curve
  • Price elasticity of demand, calculations of PED, interpretation, and its importance to businesses
  • Introduction to supply
  • Factors influencing supply and movement along and shifts of supply curve
  • Income elasticity of demand, calculations, comparison/contrast to PED, interpretation of YED, and importance to business

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

Term 2

Theme 1 Marketing and People

Theme 1, topic 5 entrepreneurs and leaders

  • Role of the entrepreneur, problems, and barriers
  • Entrepreneurial motives, characteristics, and skills
  • Challenges of moving from manager to leader
  • Business objectives
  • Legal organisation and features
  • Business choices, opportunity costs, and trade offs
  • Stock market flotation

Theme 2 managing business activities

Theme 2, Topic 1 Raising finance

  • Internal finance
  • Sources and methods of external finance
  • Legal and financial implications, and liability
  • Business planning
  • Use and limitations of cash flow forecasts

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

Term 3

Theme 2 Managing Business Activities

Theme 2, topic 4 resource management

  • Methods of production, productivity, and efficiency
  • Capacity utilisation, calculation, implications, and ways of improving capacity utilisation
  • Stock control, diagrams, key features, methods, and advantages
  • Quality management, methods, costs, and benefits – links between stock control and quality management

Theme 2, topic 5 external influences

  • The business cycle
  • Economic influences, macroeconomic variables: inflation, exchange rates
  • Economic policy: interest rates, taxation, and government spending
  • Different areas of businesses affected by legislation
  • The competitive environment

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

PPE May

Theme 1 Marketing and People

Theme 1, topic 3 marketing mix and strategy

  • Product design mix and how this might change
  • Types of branding, building a brand, and changes to branding
  • Types of promotion
  • Pricing strategies and factors determining strategies
  • Methods of distribution and changes in channels
  • Marketing strategy and models (product life cycle, Boston Matrix)
  • Consumer behaviour and marketing mix changes

Theme 1, topic 4 managing people

  • Individual and collective approaches to staffing
  • Methods of recruitment, selection, and training
  • Key features, advantages, and disadvantages of organisational design
  • Motivation theory and practice
  • Financial and non-financial incentives
  • Leadership and management and links to motivation

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

Extended open-response question

End of term assessment including extended open-response question

Theme 2 Managing Business Activities

Theme 2, topic 2 financial planning and topic 3 managing finance

  • Purpose of sales forecasting, factors influencing, and difficulties
  • Sales, revenue, costs, and links to sales forecasting
  • Break-even, numerical, graphical, and interpretation
  • Purpose, types, and difficulty of budgets
  • Variance analysis
  • Distinction between profit and cash
  • Profit, calculation, and link to break-even
  • Profit and loss account, key features
  • Balance sheet, key features, and liquidity
  • Working capital with link to cash
  • Business failure, link to cash, profit, and liquidity
  • Non-financial reasons for failure, link to market and people

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

Extended open-response question

End of term assessment including extended open-response question

Theme 4 Global Decisions

Theme 4, topic 1 globalisation

  • Growing economies, measurements of different economies and economic performance and business opportunities
  • International trade and business growth
  • Globalisation
  • Specialisation of economies and business
  • Business growth via trade

Theme 3 Business Decisions and Strategy

Theme 3, topic 1 business objectives and topic 4 Influences on business decisions

  • Corporate objectives, development, and levels
  • Critical appraisal of these and their presentation
  • Corporate influences, timescales, and influences on decision-making
  • Business ethics, trade offs between profit and ethics, and related to objectives

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

Extended open-response question

Summer PPE Theme 1 and 2 including extended open-response question

Summer work

Consolidation – globalisation including emerging economies, international trade, and protectionism

Year 13

Term 1

Theme 3 Business Decisions and Strategy and Theme 4 Global Decisions

Theme 3, topic 4 influences on business decisions

  • Shareholders versus stakeholders, influences on business objectives and conflicts between stakeholders and the business
  • Corporate culture in relation to objectives, ethics etc, categorising culture and its strengths

Theme 3, topic 1 business objectives

  • Theories of corporate strategy, Ansoff, Porter, Boston Matrix, strategic and tactical decisions
  • SWOT analysis
  • Impact of external influences PESTLE analysis

Theme 4, topic 1 globalisation

  • External factors, link to PESTLE
  • Protectionism, threats posed to economies and reactions
  • Trading Blocs, opportunities, and threats to business

Theme 4, topic 2 global markets and business expansion

  • Conditions that prompt trade, push, and pull factors for businesses
  • Assessment of a country as a market
  • Assessment of a country a production location, contrast the two, and compare factors
  • Reasons for global mergers and joint ventures
  • Global competitiveness

Continued

Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 and 2 content

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

Introduction to the broad pre-released context (from June) for A-level paper 3.

Term 2

  • Research for the broad pre-released context for A-level paper 3.
  • Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 & 2 content
  • Revisiting of Year 13, theme 3 & 4 content
  • Paper 3 research and preparation
  • Paper 1 & 2 examination preparation

PPE 1 January

Theme 3 Business Decisions and Strategy and

Theme 4 Global Decisions

Theme 3, topic 5 assessing competitiveness

  • Interpretation of financial statements – profit and loss account and balance sheet
  • Stakeholder interest
  • Calculation, interpretation, uses and limitations of ratio analysis
  • Human resources and quantitative measure of HR performance

Theme 4, topic 3 global marketing

  • Marketing on a global scale
  • Strategic choices for different markets
  • Cultural and social issues and influences on marketing strategy
  • Niche markets and how these interact with cultural and social issues

Continued

Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 and 2 content

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

Term 3

  • Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 & 2 content considering disruptions/COVID pandemic in Year 12
  • Revisiting of Year 13, theme 3 & 4 content
  • Paper 3 research and preparation
  • Paper 1 & 2 examination preparation

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of half term assessment including extended open-response question

 

  • Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 & 2 content
  • Revisiting of Year 13, theme 3 & 4 content
  • Paper 3 research and preparation
  • Paper 1 & 2 examination preparation

A-level examination end of May and June

Theme 3 Business Decisions and Strategy and

Theme 4 Global Decisions

Theme 3, topic 2 business growth

  • How, why, and problems of growth
  • Categories and reasons for mergers and takeovers
  • Organic growth, compare with inorganic growth
  • Reasons for staying small, links to highly competitive markets, avoidance of diseconomies of scale

Theme 3, topic 3 decision-making techniques

  • Quantitative sales forecasting, time series analysis calculations, uses and limitations
  • Methods, calculation, interpretation, uses and limitations of investment appraisal
  • Construction, interpretation, uses and limitations of decision trees
  • Completion, interpretation, uses, and limitations of critical path analysis

Theme 4, topic 4 global industries and companies

  • The impact of MNCs
  • Local vs national impacts
  • Ethics and ethical discussions raised by activities of MNCs
  • Controlling MNCs with possibilities and practicalities

Continued

Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 and 2 content

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

End of term assessment including extended open-response question

Theme 3 Business Decisions and Strategy

Theme 3, topic 6 managing change

  • Causes and effects of change
  • Key factors in change and links to the topics covered within this theme
  • Scenario planning and planning to reduce risk

Continued

Revisiting of Year 12, theme 1 & 2 content

Assessment

Data response

interpret, apply, and analyse information in written, graphical and numerical forms

Practice exam questions

(4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20-mark questions)

PPE 2 March

End of term assessment including extended open-response question

Achieving outstanding outcomes in Business – knowing and remembering even more than what is expected in a grammar school Business A-level curriculum, developing sophisticated application, analysis and evaluation skills. Writing in a successful academic writing style. 

Our assessment practice at SHSG reflects on how successful students have been in knowing, remembering, and doing more through the above topics, as well as consistently achieving the highest band in the Business A-level assessment criteria.

To go beyond what is expected of a SHSG business A-level student in Year 12 and 13 and achieve outstanding outcomes in Business, students should read widely including keeping up to date with news and current affairs, engage in watching relevant Ted Talks and recommended research.  Through the VESPA study skills programme, they will develop highly effective independent study skills.  Students will have a confident understanding and use of key concepts and subject specific terminology.

Recommended reading in Business A-level 

Principal Course Text

Pearson Edexcel A level Business Paperback – May 31, 2019, Ian Marcouse, Andrew Hammond, Nigel Watson

  • Broadsheet newspapers – available in library or online
  • The Business Book (Big Ideas) Edited from various contributors, 2014
  • Leading Ferguson, Alex and Moritz, Michael, 2016
  • The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference  Malcolm Gladwell
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter
  • Big To Fail Andrew Ross
  • The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy Pietra Rivoli
  • The Ascent of Money Niall Ferguson
  • The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand Chris Anderson (Author)
  • The Essence of Success: 12 Mini Biographies Includes Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Steven Spielberg, Stephen Hawking, Chris Evans, Frank Sinatra, Tony Blair, Imran Khan, Malcolm X, James Dyson, Margaret Thatcher, 2014
  • Strong Woman: The Truth About Getting to The Top Karren Brady, 2013
  • The Entrepreneur’s Book of Checklists: 1000 Tips to Help You Start and Grow Your Business Robert Ashton

Useful websites, TED Talks and research for Business A-level

Business-specific language to master in Business A-level

  • All required technical terminology can be found in notes from class and glossary in the textbooks. Students are encouraged to create a glossary of key terms
  • Key concepts to understand for essay writing: application, analysis, evaluation
Year 5 Open Evening (September 2024 cohort)Information here