We aim to get to know you and your aspirations, and to enable you to achieve your potential though up to date courses designed with students in mind. Your values and enthusiasm are as important as the skills and knowledge you develop, so the curriculum offers interest and challenges by applying learning to real business organisations and real-time business news.  

Whether you want to lead a business, run your own business, or understand organisations for your future career in business, our vision is to develop real world, enterprising, and employability skills for tomorrow's leaders and to prepare our students for an ever-changing and challenging business environment. Students who engage fully will leave with the skills necessary to be entrepreneurial, independent learners, confident presenters and strong team players with a sound understanding of the world in which they live. You will work on case studies to develop your functional and transferable skills, your ability to critically analyse, your cultural capital, your passion and your ability to demonstrate these qualities. 

Learning is a mixture of teacher-led and student-led, with resources from books to worksheets, to case studies and online videos for consolidating knowledge and understanding. You’ll be tested regularly on your knowledge and will learn to apply it very soon, with focus on improving your analytical skills and ability to evaluate business decisions. Essay skills are built up throughout the course. You’ll know how you’re progressing by tracking your performance and looking for ways to improve, just as any entrepreneur would. 

Course Content

A level Business is taught as 10 topics, with 1–5 in Year 12 and 6-10 in Year 13. It differs from GCSE Business because we look more at decisions that can be made to improve the business. If a student hasn’t done GCSE, it’s possible to catch up by reading about the basics ahead of when we study or by learning and practising some of the business finance basics (you will be given a schedule). 

• What is a business? 
• Managers, leaders & decision-making 
• Decision-making to improve marketing performance
• Decision-making to improve operational performance 
• Decision-making to improve financial performance 
• Decision-making to improve human resources performance 
• Analysing the strategic positioning of a business 
• Choosing strategic direction 
• Strategic methods ; how to pursue strategies
• Managing strategic change 

Assessment criteria 

Skills build on GCSE skills with fewer marks from knowledge and more from use of your knowledge. Students are assessed on :

• Knowledge – terms, concepts, models, diagrams 
• Application & Understanding – using knowledge in context 
• Analysis – ability to use lines of reasoning showing cause & effect 
• Evaluation – arguments and judgements on the use or relevance of a concept or theory

There are three exams at the end of Year 13. 

 

Exam Board: AQA

Entry Requirements: 5 in business, 5 in English literature or language and 5 in maths

Suitable course if you are interested in: how businesses operate, marketing strategies of companies, understanding finances, understanding the fundamentals of setting up and running a business, understanding corporate strategy. 

Leading to a career in: accountancy, HR, marketing, logistics, entrepreneurship, retail, HR, banking & finance, operations management, most careers. 

This subject goes well with: maths, psychology, ICT, design & technology, most subjects