Business and Economics

Head of Department: Mr Simon James

The department consists of an experienced, skilful and dynamic group of teachers that provide a range of subject choices designed to meet a variety of interests and skills. The subjects on offer are:

Business Studies A-level (AQA)
Applied Business Double Award- worth 2 A-levels (AQA)
IB Business and Management
Economics A-level (OCR)
IB Economics

Business education is concentrated almost entirely on your ability to consider/recommend different courses of action in different business situations.

In order to be able to evaluate the advantages or disadvantages of these courses of action, you will need to be equipped with knowledge of tools of analysis, information about consequences, and an appreciation of how business works in the context of national and international economies.

In other words, Business education will test how well you are able to apply what you know to a given business problem. Because it involves a broad range of skills, both qualitative and quantitative, Business Studies is a good complement to virtually any other A-Level course.

Economics studies some of the most important and interesting problems facing us as consumers, workers or employers, citizens of Europe, and citizens of the world. Although it has something in common with subjects such as History, Politics, Geography and Business Studies, its methods are unique, and once students acquire the Economics 'mind-set' they will be able to explain and analyse the world in a way which is intriguing, thought provoking and useful. Economics is highly thought of by university admissions tutors, and, if students decide to make it the basis of their degree course, they can expect employers to take the same view; Economics graduates are among the highest paid of all.

Each year, between 14 and 25 students take Economics at AS. Many go on to read the subject at University departments such as Oxford, the LSE and UCL. To be good at the subject students need (at least) three things: they need to be interested in what is reported at the front end of a decent newspaper; they need to be comfortable with numbers and diagrams (at least a grade B in GCSE Maths is desirable); and they need to be reasonably articulate and fluent in speaking and writing English. If English is not your main language, an IELTS equivalent score of 6.5 is desirable.

All subjects benefit from a wide variety of national and international trips. These are vital for students to gain the practical understanding in order to complement the theoretical work. See below for photos on a range of departmental trips.