Business and Economics at the Senior School

In September, as we began the new Academic Year, the Business Studies department welcomed its first ever Year 9 co-hort. They were busy being creative inventing their own brand of soft drink for the “Coca-Cola challenge”, a national competition where students are required to not only design a new product, but also to cost it and research its viability. Along with their business plan ideas for the fictional “Akeley Pizzeria” they have produced some superb work; we are really proud of the way they have settled in, maturely and sensibly.
Year 10 have been learning about “Entrepreneurs and Enterprise” and were indeed very enterprising in October, when they got involved with the “share challenge”, a national challenge where students are encouraged to fictionally “buy and sell” shares and compete against other schools when trading.Year 11 have been busy preparing for and completing their “mock” examinations throughout November/December and now have a much greater understanding of what is required before their final exams next year. Our Sixth Form students have been progressing well with their A-Level courses, Year 12 having just finished looking at “Marketing” as a theme and have produced some outstanding assessment pieces.

Year 13 have been studying “Strategy & Globalisation” and are now ready to tackle the A-Level papers in the forthcoming new year pre-public examinations. We wish them all the very best of luck.

In Economics, Year 12 students got off to an enthusiastic start; an international group consisting of students from China to Nigeria makes for interesting contributions and many varied country specific examples. They have been learning about how markets work (demand, supply and elasticity) and have put their knowledge into action through investigations into oil and housing markets. They have also looked at the work of different economists which facilitated heated discussions about the views of Adam Smith, Frederick Hayek and Karl Marx and are currently looking at the methods that the Government can use to correct markets when they fail.

Whilst in Year 13, students started the year looking at the growth of firms through mergers and takeovers and students are mastering the multitude of cost and revenue diagrams in various market structures. An in depth analysis of the market spectrum from perfect competition to monopolies have been studied in November and students are now looking at the work of the UK Competition and Market Authority in controlling dominant firms.  Phew!  It certainly has been a very busy term in Business & Economics and we wish all our students a very happy and restful Christmas.