ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS STUDIES AT PRINCE HENRY’S

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT: MR B MORDUE

GCSE Business Studies is an integrated course which gives students the opportunity to explore the business world and to develop their knowledge and understanding of that world.

Why is Business Studies Useful?

GCSE Business Studies will provide a basis for those who plan to go into business and for those who may pursue other careers in Accountancy, Economics, Estate Management, Banking, Travel & Tourism, Personnel, Insurance, Law, Production and Retail Management, and many more.

Departmental Report 2005

In November 2005, ten GCSE gifted and talented students got the chance to take part in an Aimhigher event organised by Leeds Education in conjunction with Coca-Cola Enterprises at South Leeds Business Centre. The event pitted many G&T students from Leeds schools against each other in a superb marketing activity.  The event involved students working as a complete team, which had to develop a drink product for a certain target audience.  Students had to design a product, create an advertising campaign and work out all of the associated costs of production and distribution. All groups then presented their marketing campaigns to an audience of 100.

Year 10 BTEC students are busy studying the ‘investigating business’ element of their course and were able to interview ‘Alan Drew’ from the education web-design company ‘Localbiz’ as part of their research into how businesses and individuals use IT.

January saw a small number of G&T Business students attend the ‘Stock Market Challenge’ at Leeds Civic Hall.  The event was organised by Aimhigher of Education Leeds and pitted students against others from Leeds schools in a dynamic and interactive stock market game. Again, this was a fun learning experience for the students involved and they were able to transfer some of the skills acquired to their Business Studies course.

Departmental Report 2003 - 2005

The academic year began with the usual flurry of exam results in mid August. Once again 2003 proved to be another successful year for the Business Studies Department and it was pleasing to see the students’ hard work being rewarded on Prize Day. The GCSE Business Studies results were extremely encouraging. 

As 'marketing' forms part of the GCSE and A-Level course, we invited the Marketing Manager from 'Virgin soft drinks UK' into school for a day to talk to the students at GCSE and A Level.  This proved to be very interesting and enjoyable. Several students in Year12 were able to use the information to aid the coursework element of their work to great success.

During the internal school exams, I had the opportunity to participate in an Industrial Placement, organised by Education Leeds. The one-day placement, which took place in 'Lever Faberge', Seacroft, Leeds. The placement gave me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge of industry and in particular quality and production techniques and to take this experience back to the classroom. During my visit I was taken on a guided tour of the main factory, where I was introduced to a number of the machine operators who kindly took time out to explain their role in the highly automated production process of personal care products packaging. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my hosts, who helped to oversee and co-ordinate the work placement.

As we start the September 2004 term, the Business Studies Department is continuing to forge links with local and national business organisations in an attempt to gather useful research about their organisations. 

Mr.Mordue (Head of Business Studies)