The Edinburgh Academy Business Studies department

Personally Tailored Teaching

Business Studies at The Edinburgh Academy

Why study business?

There was a time when people would assume that management skills were acquired on the job. Later it was thought to be a postgraduate, and still later an undergraduate subject. About forty years ago it was introduced into schools as an A-Level, then as a GCSE, and finally in 1992 as a Scottish Higher. It is now extremely popular.

Though we have a vested interest, we do think that this popularity is justified. Why is this?

Although management is studied in schools as an academic rather than a vocational subject, the construction of the course does allow a significant insight into a variety of possible career paths. Aspects of marketing, accounting, human resources and operations management are all involved. Those who might contemplate specialising in these fields can get a taster of what they might be like.

Business Studies at the school level teaches problem solving skills in the practical context of the world of work, to which all students will at some stage progress, whether or not they understand it!

Business Studies & The Academy

Sometimes students are unable to see the use of study. Not so in this case. There is not much doubt about the relevance of this subject to real life. Business news is all around us. It's in the media. Parents discuss it in the home. Politicians expect us to consider it when we vote. This course helps students to understand and become involved in all this process. Importantly it also helps to correct unconsciously acquired prejudices and misconceptions about the business world.

The Academy introduced Management Science into its curriculum at Advanced Level in 1979, and the following year proposed to the then SEB that the subject should be developed into a new Scottish Higher Examination. A former Rector, Lawrence Ellis, and a former Head of Business Studies, Philip Hall, contributed considerably to the development of the subject first examined as Management and Information Studies in 1992.

At any level, a management science course is likely to involve the aspects touched upon below. The levels at which the subject can be studied in school are also outlined.

About Business Studies

Examination of the background to business activity

Experience of business decisions

Different types of business and their different objectives;

Different types of managers and their roles in organisations;

Different theories of what managers should do in order to achieve success;

An analysis of the process of decision making and how it may be facilitated by information technology.

Financial decisions, involving a basic grasp of financial and management accounting, budgeting and business planning.
Marketing decisions, including market research and analysis, positioning and the marketing mix.
Human Resources decisions, from recruitment through to motivation, law and industrial relations.
Operational decisions, from purchasing, through production, to distribution.
Organisational decisions, about how the business itself should be structured in order to achieve its objective

GCSE

Higher Grade

Although aspects of business studies enter into teaching at the junior school level and again during Personal and Social Development classes in the early senior years, in The Academy the first opportunity to study business matters in detail arises in conjunction with Economics at GCSE.

The GCSE course provides a good grounding in the various aspects of business, together with the opportunity to analyses markets and practise decision making in a commercial context.

There is a coursework requirement which takes the form of individual project assiggnments. In the first two years of the BP sponsorship of the Nuffield GCSE course, national prizes were awarded for coursework. Academy pupils won national prizes in both of those years.

The two subjects (Business Studies and Economics) then divide and go their separate ways. Business Management is studied in the sixth year at Scottish Higher, where candidates coming from GCSE are joined both by newcomers to the subject and by students from the seventh year who need to acquire an extra Higher in one year.

It should be noted that whilst it is possible to get to Higher Grade from scratch in one year, this involves a serious work commitment and should not be attempted lightly or under the impression that the target is easy. One reason why Business Management Higher statistics do not always compare favourably with other subjects is the tendency for one or two candidates each year to underestimate the work required to reach in one year the standard that may take five or six years in other subjects.

A-Level

In the final school year, some of those who have studied the subject at Higher go on to take A Level. At this level the subject is called Business Studies. The theme is the multi-disciplinary approach to problems which is vital to the management of a modern firm. Although a manager may have a specialism of his own, it is vital that he also possesses integrative skills and the ability to communicate.

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