This Week in Business

Hardly a week has gone by throughout the Covid-19 pandemic without there being something topical for us to discuss in Business & Economics and this week has been no exception.

Whilst Year 11 and 13 have been preparing hard for their mock examinations, we have been able to discuss ‘the winners and losers’ of the retail world, employment law and furlough schemes. We have even looked at a previous exam paper which featured ‘Pfizer’, a company many of the students admitted they would have known little about or even heard of six months ago, yet now they are hearing about them daily and we were able to incorporate overseas trade, ethics and capacity utilisation into our analysis. We even had time to discuss Amazon’s first contactless shopping which opened in London late last month.

Continuing with current affairs Year 12 Economists have had the opportunity to become Chancellor of the Exchequer this week.  After critiquing last Wednesday’s budget, they used their knowledge of Fiscal Policy to decide on their own top 5 measures to ensure the UK economy’s road to recovery. Some very interesting and insightful ideas; maybe we will see one of them at 11 (or maybe even 10) Downing Street, in the near future.

Meanwhile, having recently embarked on the Marketing module of their GCSE course and discussing market trends and growth, Year 10 Business students have been using their creative talents. They have created images and mood boards of ‘target customers’ as well as designing marketing pitches for their own shampoo brand.  Their brief was to design a bottle & logo, decide on the selling price, promotional techniques and where the product should be sold, along with giving a convincing ‘pitch’ to a marketing agency. It was good to see such a wide, varied range of ideas.

A busy and exciting week showing our students’ diverse skills and knowledge at their best!

Mrs Rachel Waldron

Head of Social Sciences