Business & Economics

Highlights of 2009 Results

The current Business Studies grades are the best ever seen in QK, with the department now teaching more students than ever across Key Stages 4&5. Particular areas of achievement were:

• BTEC First Certificate in Business - 100% pass rate, with 8 students completing a full diploma worth 4 GCSEs!
• Nuffield GCSE Economics - 100% Pass rate at C or above, evidenced against the national Business Studies results (A*-C 63%) as well as the national results for Economics (A*-C 72%)!
• A Level Business Studies - 100% students either achieved their ALPS grade or higher! 67% of students exceeded their predicted ALPS!
• BTEC National Diploma in Business - In total 71% students exceeded their predicted ALPS. 100% Passed!

Current Developments

The Business Career Academy is going from strength to strength. The 2008/9 cohort achieved the best ever Business A level results ever and we strongly believe that this is in part due to the motivational benefit of the Academy membership. The Academy Advisory Board has now been officially and formally established should guide future expansion of this project. Students really take pride in being part of this excellent group of future business leaders.

In terms of staff changes Mr de Garis has been appointed acting head of department as Mr Albrecht moves into and acting SLT position overseeing a number of departments with a particular emphasis upon BTEC and vocational education. To cope with continued expansion Mr Holder has been recruited from Maths to support Business Studies in KS4 and Mrs Hassan has been promoted to the role of BTEC co-ordinator for the Business and Economics Department.

At the end of this academic year the department will completely replace the Nuffield Business Economics GCSE with the new Business and Economics GCSE course. This exciting new course has been created to give students in year 10 and 11 the opportunity to learn about the skills to start and run a business as well as the wider economic picture. We also plan to implement a Double Award BTEC National Diploma for September 2010.

Beyond QK

We are continue to increase our contact with the business world and despite the tough economic conditions have been able to conduct a range of workshops and visits to an increasingly broad range of organisations. As ever, we have our paid summer internship program with Career Academies UK which is supported by the "Partners in Business" program and the "QK Guru Lecture" series with 12 Business speakers giving lectures and workshops throughout the academic year. Highlights this year have been the 2009 Paris Residential to Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer (the world's 5th largest law firm) The Head of the Financial Services Authority; Mr Hector Sants speaking to our Economics Students and The Coca Cola Challenge whereby Coca Cola executive grilled our Year 12 Business A level students regarding their proposed new product launches. Given this sort of exposure it is little wonder that the Business and Economics department was enthusiastically described as "cutting edge" in our 2009 local authority visit!