Business Education courses at Notre Dame
Catholic College
Since 2005 new courses have been included
into Business Education at both KS4 and KS5
to replace GNVQ and AVCE.
Business courses are:
KS4 – Applied GCSE Double Award
IFS Foundation Certificate
IFS Intermediate Certificate
KS5 – Applied GCSE
Double Award
APPLIED GCSE
BUSINESS DOUBLE AWARD
Here are some questions answered:
Q. What does “Applied” mean?
A. This means that a course with “Applied”
in the title will relate closely to the
subject being studied and students will
study first hand what goes on in businesses
today
Q. What is a Double Award?
A. The amount that students study during the
course will be help them to achieve 2 GCSE’s
at the end of the 2nd year
Grades will range from GG up to A*,
A*
depending on the quality of coursework and
the examination mark achieved
Q. What topics will be studied?
A. students will study 3 units over 2 years
looking at a range of different topics
including:
• Marketing – how businesses get us to buy
their products
• Customer Service – how businesses keep
their customers happy
• People in business – from employees to
managers and their job roles
• Business Finance – how businesses make
money and how they spend it.• Environment
– what businesses can do to the environment
around us
Q. What work will students have to do?
A. They will produce 2 pieces of coursework
and sit 1 examination.
The examination is 1.5 hours and will be on
Business Finance and is 1/3 of the overall
GCSE in this subject.
In order to study real businesses students
will need to see how they operate. Visits in
the past have included; Cadbury World,
Mersey Ferries, Chester Zoo and Blue Planet.
Q. How will students complete coursework?
A. There are a number of ways that
coursework can be completed
• Visit businesses and ask questions to find
out how they work
• Research company websites for information
• Use a range of interactive games and
exercises to help develop understanding of
the topics
• Carry out surveys to test peoples’
opinions
IFS – Foundation Certificate in Personal
Finance and Intermediate Certificate in
Personal Finance
Starting in 2006, this is a new course to be
studied by KS4 students alongside GCSE
Applied Business.
The course is designed to give students the
opportunity to look at various elements of
personal fiancé such as borrowing and saving
to buying on e-bay!
The course uses a large amount of
interactive materials. The materials
produced are very colourful and therefore
attractive to students as well as being
“user friendly”
Students complete 4 modules in total; 2 for
the Foundation (D-G) and 2 for the
Intermediate (A-C). At the end of each
module the student sits a 30 min examination
which is marked within 48hrs!
There are very good exercises on the website
which students can access using their
Password.
Other colleges/schools there who were
delivering the course now (at AS/A2 level)
commented on how Ofsted were impressed with
its content and particularly how it met many
of the criteria of both Citizenship and
Enterprise.
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