Year 13 – Business Studies

Head of Subject: Mr J Willets

Intended Outcomes

The study of strategic decision making should build on the study of decision making in the 
functional areas where students will consider the impact of technology on strategic decision making, the influences of Corporate Social Responsibility, ethical and environmental issues on strategic decisions, the difficulties in forecasting future trends, the importance of assessing feasibility and risk when making strategic decisions and the impact on stakeholders of strategic decisions and their response to such decisions. The specification and assessment should encourage students to follow business developments and think critically about contemporary business issues with most of the assessment material being based on real business situations. By examining and thinking critically about real business situations as they study the subject, students will gain an insight into different contexts which will help them to understand the key issues in any situation and compare and contrast this with other situations and apply their understanding. 

  • Course Implementation

    Analysing the Strategic Position of a Business 

    Students will learn and start to understand topics such as corporate objectives, functional objectives, analysing the existing internal position of a business to assess strengths and weaknesses, analysing the external environment to assess opportunities and threats: political, social, economic, environmental, technological and legal change.  As this unit is the biggest across the A Level, there will be numerous practice exam style questions to answer but the most challenging one will be ‘The key to successful manufacturing business today is a positive management attitude to technological change.’ To what extent do you agree with this view? (25 marks).

    Choosing Strategic Direction 

    Students will be investigating which markets businesses should compete in and what products to offer, strategic positioning and choosing how to compete. Pupils will have opportunities to answer multiple choice questions, a series of open ended questions and some past paper exam questions such as ‘Do you think Aston Martin should be targeting emerging economies such as the BRIC economies? Justify your answer’. (20 marks).

    Strategic Methods: How to Pursue Strategies 

    Students will be investigating how businesses assess numerous factors such as a change in scale, innovation, globalisation, internationalisation and greater use of digital technology. Pupils will be tested using numerous different assessment challenges such as a series of multiple choice questions, textbook questions, verbal Q+A and also an opportunity to answer an extended written question on Amazon targeting new markets.  

    Managing Strategic Change 

    The pupils will get to learn about the causes of and pressures for change, overcoming barriers to change, managing organisational structure, managing strategic implementation and analysing problems with strategy.  Students will have numerous assessment opportunities throughout the teaching of this unit including a 20 mark question on ‘what extent do you think the leadership of Nadella will be the main factor determining the success of Microsoft’s new strategy?’.

     

Learning Impact

Students’ knowledge will be assessed regularly through past paper questions to practice along with trial examinations to showcase their knowledge and understanding of business concepts put into real life scenarios. They will build upon their initial mathematical and extended writing skills learned from Year 12 and enhance this in Year 13 to be A Level appropriate with numerous marking opportunities to develop exam techniques. Parents will be able to see feedback of essays through Office 365 Teams Assignments along with data drop being sent home, written reports and parents’ evenings. 

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