Certificate in Financial Studies

Every year the Sixth Form have the opportunity to take an additional qualification which focuses on budgets and managing money, the different ways to save and borrow and how the financial system operates for us.

In the main, they work independently on the topics and take exams during the year to gain a Level 3 qualification which carries UCAS points to the equivalence of an AS Level.

Once again this year’s Year 12 continued the tradition of achieving a 100% pass rate with the vast majority of the grades at the top level. We also found that some of the students from last year were able to use the qualification to establish a place at university.

Not only do the students have to take more responsibility for their own learning on this course but that they learn invaluable features of Personal Finance which will take them through their future lives and careers.

Here are two testimonies from Finn and Laura who took the course this year…

The personal finance course has taught me a variety of like skills about how to manage my finances. The two units have shown me how to look after my finances in the long term and in the short term; the units showed me different methods of saving, such as the different types of ISAs, borrowing and also who I can contact if I was to get into financial difficulty. If I had not done this course, I most likely will not have known any of this. It has certainly taught me skills that I will most definitely need throughout my life and probably will not have known as many of these options with finance had I not studied this qualification.

The course also gives extra UCAS points, which is a benefit when applying to university. I have also realised, when studying economics, that they link in well together, especially when looking at money and interest rates. Not only has the personal finance course helped me with life skills I may not have realised had I not done it, it has also helped and linked in well with my studies within school as well.

Laura

After hearing “when will we ever use this in life” been thrown around many times around school, the Personal Finance course gives

Sixth Form students the opportunity to increase their level of understanding of the fundamentals of budgeting, saving, debt, and investing setting a good foundation of money management for use at university and when they have left school.

I also found that some of the topics covered in the Personal Finance course gave me a head start in some of my subject areas. As the PF course overlapped certain content in both my A Level Business Studies and Economics, this helped me have a broader area of subject knowledge helping me prepare for both my A Levels and Personal Finance exams.

Finn

With nearly half of all pupils achieving eight or more grade 7s or better, some subjects in particular have enjoyed remarkable success. Across all three sciences the average grade was 7.1 and nearly a third of the results were grade 9. In English Language the average grade was 7.5, while in R.E., it was 8.0. Impressively, in Latin two thirds of students achieved a grade 9 and the average grade was 8.3.