What you will learn

The Edexcel Business course will cover: how and why do business ideas come about? How do different business situations affect business decisions? How does a business go about marketing its products, or deciding on the best price for its services? How does a business go about recruiting the right staff and motivate them to keep working well? How does a business obtain the finance to even start trading to begin with, and how does it raise more? What are the challenges of getting the product from factory to customer, and how does it do that in the most cost effective way? What are the external influences on a business and how should it react in an ever changing globally competitive environment?

A breakdown of the core topics are listed below:

PAPER 1: INVESTIGATING SMALL BUSINESS

Enterprise and entrepreneurship

Spotting a business opportunity

Putting a business idea into practice

Making the business effective

Understanding external influences on business

PAPER 2: BUILDING A BUSINESS

Growing the business

Making marketing decisions

Making operational decisions

Making financial decisions

Making human resource decisions

The course acts as a good foundation for A Level Business or Economics, but will also help to develop transferable skills that are useful in other subjects such as the ability to analyse both quantitative and qualitative information whilst evaluating different problems. It will encourage students to make more informed choices about a wide range of further learning opportunities and career pathways as well as develop life skills that enable them to become financially and commercially aware. As such, it is a good foundation course that prepares students for more advanced study or has a direct application to future employment opportunities.

Chemistry

Exam Board & Specification

AQA GCSE Chemistry

Method of Assessment

Two exams, equally weighted, each 1 hour 45 minutes.

Paper 1: Topics 1-5

Paper 2: Topics 6-10

The Combined Science papers are shorter in duration, reflecting the reduced content of the course.

Practical and Investigative Skills:

Questions on practical work will be assessed in all written papers and will count for at least 15% of the overall mark.