The aim of the Business and enterprise curriculum is to develop students’ understanding of how the local / national / global economy works through analysing business issues, problems and businesses that affect everyday life. Also to equip students with the appropriate knowledge and skills needed to develop their employability and identify business problems and opportunities. We want students to be able to think analytically, reach logical conclusions based on data, and make judgements on future changes to markets and the economy. We use this view to help choose courses that will one; allow students to achieve but more importantly engage and enjoy their learning. We actively therefore keep our eye on the course content across the exam boards and are not afraid to change should there be a better course more suited to our students. We work as a team to conduct collaborative, detailed and thorough curriculum planning. We have produced a two-year plan that allows us to highlight the quadmesterly essential question, core subject knowledge and concepts, HPL, format of assessment and summary of what should be learnt by the end of the year. By creating this plan we are able to make sure all core course content is covered whilst also planning the order of teaching. Road maps are written for the students to also see what they will be learning throughout the year. This is used to then gather and develop all available resources and teaching strategies to ensure that students have a comprehensive knowledge of the specifications and are capable of going beyond what is taught in lessons and link their learning to the real world.
We believe all students can achieve and therefore use quality first teaching which ensures students understand underlying Business & Enterprise theory which students apply to a variety of familiar and unfamiliar case studies. Students are constantly challenged to work collaboratively and think independently when engaging in all lessons and class debates. Through teacher modelling, we encourage our students to demonstrate manners, respect and tolerance in Business & Enterprise lessons. This allows students to express themselves in a confident manner. Lesson materials are engaging to promote topical discussion and encourage students to develop an enquiring mind. We use a variety of pedagogy in our lessons to keep things interesting for the students. Solo taxonomy is used to set lesson success criteria and help build knowledge in a structured clear way. We feel this is important so that students are able to see their learning progression. We use knowledge organisers to help students with key concepts and vocabulary. We have a VLE (firefly) for setting tasks and students to access all resources. This allows students to work independently and at their own pace where needed. As we have recently changed to the OCR GCSE course we now have a knowledge based curriculum which underpins and enables the application of skills. Content is delivered to students and then built upon through a variety of practice questions, with regular quality feedback, feedforward and questioning to support student progress. Seesaw is used for students to upload work for this to happen. The knowledge acquired then allows students to develop their analytical and critical thinking skills. Cultural Capital is embedded throughout the curriculum. Our students are constantly introduced to a wide variety of viewpoints from some of the most influential entrepreneurs throughout history. We investigate the impact that their work has had on the world we live in and students are encouraged to make links between their studies and real life examples. Students undertake this whilst developing an increased understanding into current events happening globally. In addition to our aims, our curriculum design includes revisiting and building on existing knowledge. We ensure the level of challenge is high enough for the most able, with scaffold and support available for students who need it allowing all the opportunity to achieve mastery. Techniques to help develop long-term memory and help students master subject content are embedded in the curriculum, e.g. questioning at the beginning of lessons. These are focussed on embedding challenge, metacognition, memory techniques, numeracy and literacy.
We our confident curriculum is working in the Business & Enterprise as examination results are consistently at or above the national average and stand up very well in the residuals of the academy. The engagement of students in the department can be observed in lessons and the quality of teaching and learning in the department has been praised during learning walks by both external and internal observers. Students are made aware of the curriculum via the road maps and also the consistent setting of learning targets on all resources. This allows the students to have a real understanding of what they are learning and are therefore able to link it better to the real world making the course more functional. The number of students choosing to study Business and Enterprise are very high and the majority of our students go on to study the subject further at college. More importantly, students frequently express their enjoyment of Business studies, the quality of teaching they have received and their appreciation of the knowledge and study skills they have gained from the department.