Takeovers and Mergers - the failed takeover behind Clinton Cards’ Collapse
The collapse of Clinton Cards has been widely predicted for some time as its new CEO (recruited from Starbucks UK) attempted to achieve a turnaround and restructuring in recent months. Clinton’s administration is one of the biggest UK retail failures wince Woolworths and much of the press analysis will focus on the competitive pressures that the retail chain faced from online operators like Moonpig and Funky Pigeon, as well as the effect of weak consumer confidence and spending.
Eagle-eyed A2 students, however, will also spot that a strategic mistake back in 2004 is at the root of many of Clinton Cards problems. The mistake - buying Birthdays Group in 2004.
read more...»AQA AS Business BUSS1 Online Revision Clinic - Thursday May10 2012
Students sitting AQA AS Business Studies unit BUSS1 may find this helpful. We’re running an online revision clinic for an hour on Thursday 10 May from 8.00 - 9.30 p.m. Graham Prior and I will be there, together with some other members of the tutor2u team to provide support for students as they prepare for the BUSS1 exam.
The online revision clinic is free and will appear here - on this blog entry. You will need to login using your Facebook, Twitter or OpenID account in order to participate (e.g. ask questions and/or comment)
read more...»Same product - different prices: Greggs sausage roll costs more in Hammersmith than Hull
The Daily Mail reports that a 66p sausage roll in Hull sells for 85p in Hammersmith – that’s almost 30% more. That finding won’t surprise you perhaps, although the size of some price differences is quite a shock.
read more...»BUSS2 – Application – stay in context
Over the years, the skill of application has been mentioned in examiners’ reports numerous times. Too often, students write down all the theory they know, totally neglecting to set their response in the context of the case study provided. Although more recent reports indicate that students are getting the message, it is still vitally important to apply your responses properly; in the case of the evaluative questions, this will also help make sure that your judgement is relevant.
read more...»Exchange rate: £1 above €1.20
The pound buys more euros now than since November 2008, according to a news clip on the BBC. Any Business Studies question with an international dimension gives you scope to talk about exchange rates. This might be a story for you to refresh in your revision, so that you can make a brief reference to it when you are looking to add application, analysis or evaluation to your marks.
read more...»Shaa Wasmund to join us for the Business Teacher National Conference 2012
Geoff and I are absolutely delighted to announce that Shaa Wasmund has kindly agreed to join us as a speaker at the Business Teacher National Conference 2012 on Thursday 28 June 2012. Shaa is one of the UK’s most impressive entrepreneurs and is behind the Smarta website, undoutedly one of the best online resources for startups and business teachers!
Most recently, Shaa also authored what has become a best-selling book on entrepreneurship and personal effectiveness - “Stop Talking - Start Doing” which really is a superb read and comes highly recommended by us.
read more...»A cracking business lesson video on my favourite product - Jaffa Cakes!
Wow - oh wow. They’ve only gone and made a video to explain how Jaffa cakes are made. Best of all - the video is packed full with little business studies nuggetts, as well as a really useful supporting article in the Telegraph!
read more...»Sources of finance in the internet age.
I have always found sources of finance a pretty dry topic to teach but yesterday my fourteen year old son introduced me to a website that I will use to hopefully engage my students in what is a very important topic.
read more...»AQA AS Business (BUSS2) - Exam Topic Tracker
As each sitting of BUSS2 is completed, it is possible to build up a useful picture of the way in which the BUSS2 specification is examined. Which topics have been examined more than once? Are there key topics which have not yet been addressed in the BUSS2 exam? Where are the calculation marks earned?
Our AQA AS Business (BUSS2) Exam Topic Tracker is a free download which can help you keep track of the exams. The link is below. We’ll update the file (the link stays the same) after each exam sitting. The latest version includes all BUSS2 sittings up to and including January 2012.
Download AQA AS Business (BUSS2) Exam Topic Tracker
There are many other support resources available for BUSS2 from tutor2u - you’ll find some great links further below. Don’t forget we also have our new BUSS2 quick-fire revision guide available which is perfect for the last phase of revision for this tough exam.
AQA AS Business (BUSS1) - Exam Topic Tracker
Now updated to include January 2012 BUSS1 exam paper
This might be helpful for students getting ready for BUSS1 in May 2012. As each exam sitting of a new specification passes, it is a useful exercise to track which parts of the specification have been tested and in what way. Of course some topics soon become examiner favourites - tested again and again if students consistently perform poorly. So beware question-spotting…
The questions set in all the official sittings of AQA AS Business Studies (BUSS1) are summarised in our BUSS1 Topic Tracker, which you can download here:
Download AQA AS Business Studies (BUSS1) Topic Tracker
You will also find a wide range of supporting revision materials for BUSS1 from the links provided further below…
‘Hooks’ in BUSS4 Essays
How to identify and use ‘hooks’ in BUSS4 essays
read more...»Countdown Connectives for GCSE exam skills
With the GCSE Year 11 Business Studies exams approaching in a few weeks time, I’ve been working with my students at developing their exam skills. Here’s an activity I tried out today that worked pretty well.
read more...»GCSE Business Studies Revision Workshops - Spring 2013
We were delighted with the response to our pilot GCSE Business Studies revision workshops which we held at the amazing Westfield Stratford City - right next door to the Olympic Park! So we’ve decided to roll out the GCSE Business format to a series of dates in the 2012/13 school year. We’re running three events before Easter and an overflow event after Easter. The dates and venues for our 2012/13 programme are summarised below:
Colleagues can make provisional bookings for these revision workshops using the following online form: https://tutor2u.wufoo.com/forms/gcse-business-revision-workshops-spring-2012/
read more...»AQA BUSS2 & BUSS4 Revision Workshops in Spring 2013
The dates and locations for our popular programme of intensive one-day revision workshops for AQA BUSS2 and BUSS4 have now been confirmed. Details below. Provisional bookings can now be made using the online form linked below.
Make a provisional booking for AQA BUSS2 & BUSS4 revision workshops in March & April 2013
read more...»The Biz Quiz - 4 May 2012
The Biz Quiz for the week ending 4 May 2012 is now available for business quizzers! Good luck!
Launch the Biz Quiz - 4 May 2012
Download printable edition (pdf)
Marketing analysis: the UK supermarket battleground
Once again the BBC have posted up a clip that clearly and concisely (in two and a half minutes) neatly sums up the marketing challenges faced by the main UK supermarket chains: store locations, types of store, products, promotions, target markets … and prices.
On that point, there’s also more detailed news published recently about Waitrose matching Tesco prices, getting marketing mileage out of the John Lewis ‘never knowingly undersold’ pledge.
read more...»GCSE Year 11 Business Studies Online Revision Clinic - 27 May 2012
We are holding an online revision clinic for students taking their final GCSE Business Studies exam (30 May). The clinic will run from 8pm at this blog address. We’ll have teacher panellists ready to answer questions for AQA (Unit 2) and Edexcel (Unit 3) as well as provide support for OCR and other GCSE boards as appropriate. Students who wish to participate in the session will need to login when the session is live using their FB, Twitter or OPEN ID details.
read more...»Chinese Food group eats up Weetabix
Cross border acquisitions are a means of entering an established market by buying up existing firms and brands. The latest move by Bright Food a Chinese concern gives it access to the UK’s breakfast food market.
read more...»Decisions, Decisions…How to Choose a BUSS4 Essay
BUSS2 Analysis – Limited, Reasonable or Good?
Having marked quite a few BUSS2 responses, it seems students have begun to get the message about application but are falling short on analysis. Frequently, they identify a relevant point but just describe it, failing to explain how or why their point is addressing the question.
In the majority of questions, it is essential to explain how the course of action being described might affect business results.
AS Business Studies ‘Eggheads’ Revision/AFL Task
Many thanks to Gareth Allum and his students at The Cooper School, Bicester for letting us know about an innovative revision activity that has provided both enjoyable and effective. Gareth has kindly provided some supporting notes and downloads that explain and illustrate the “eggheads”-style revision approach.
read more...»Making Finance Fun 2012 - CPD Course (London and Manchester)
This new CPD course from the tutor2u team looks at how we can make the teaching and learning of finance fun!, We’re running the course for the first time on 20 June 2012 in central London and the following day in Manchester…
read more...»Adding context to exam answers
A selection of headlines in the last 24 hours:
- Householders hit at mortgage rates rise
- Maximum waiting time at Heathrow’s terminal 3 was breached more than 100 times in 15 days
- Microsoft has invested $300mn to rival Apple and Amazon in the e-book market
- The cancellation of the Badminton Horse Trials due to a rain-sodden course will cost insurers £3mn and local businesses thousands more
- Global labour market ‘alarming’
- Double-dip - does it matter?
- Rate of pub closures is slowing
- Top tax rates hit four million people
......so many news stories at the moment, which students could use as evidence to help strengthen their points in essays. Too many to write up a blog on each one - but I might try to vary the revision lessons at the moment by taking in a selection of cuttings from the newspapers and asking students to imagine essay titles, topics and paragraph points which each one might be used for.
Can you compete under pressure?
The BBC has a study under way to analyse the psychology of pressure, which will offer “...a new look at why some people are particularly prone to pressure, while others cope rather well.” Not surprisingly, with a launch at this time of year, the introduction to it focuses on exam pressure, and relates it to the pressure faced by athletes and others who have to perform to their best at a set time and under set conditions. The comparison is a good one; facing your A level exams means that all of the work you have done in the last two years comes down to how well you can perform in just two hours or so in the exam room. The study is introduced with an article by Matthew Syed who competed for Britain at the Sydney Olympics, in which he looks at the working assumption that such pressure is a fact of life, and therefore we should practice techniques to learn the best way to deal with it (and as I found it a very useful article, I am cross-posting it to both Business Studies and Economics blogs, so apologies if you come across this twice).
read more...»AQA BUSS4 Section A Research Online Clinic - Tuesday 1 May 2012
This blog entry hosts an online revision clinic for students preparing for AQA BUSS4 Section A which will start at 9pm and last for an hour. Students who wish to get live support from the tutor2u team will be able to login to the clinic on this blog entry; please use your FB, Twitter or OpenID details to login.
read more...»OCR F297 case study: impact of the economic environment on the housing market
In just the last few days we have learnt that the economy has entered a ‘double dip’ recession, with the economy essentially stagnant since the peak of the economic crisis passed in summer 2009. What does all this mean for the UK housing market – the central focus of the OCR F297 A2 case study?
This blog contains extracts from the F297 case study toolkit, as well as some extra comments, links and analysis.
read more...»Evaluation - Making a ‘judge’ment
Here is a little exercise I have done with my AS Business groups this week. When trying to help with the longer essay questions, split the class into groups and and have them practice how to make a judgement for each essay question. I am using this for the OCR F292 Case Study of TSL. You can have one person in each group as the prosecution stating why they have made one certain judgement and then have another person acting as the defence stating why they think it should be a different outcome. The teacher can role play as ‘The Judge’ for the first exercise show the class what is expected.
read more...»Developing Exam Skills: AQA GCSE Business: Kingfisher Caravan Parks Ltd
This is the first in a series of practice 9-mark questions for AQA GCSE Business Studies Unit 2. This one is on Kingfisher Caravan Parks Ltd.
read more...»Application in BUSS2: Ask yourself some questions….
Support for Teachers Delivering AQA GCSE Business Studies: The 9 Mark Question
One of the key themes that teachers mentioned at the recent AQA GCSE Revision Conference in Stratford last week was the 9 mark question(s) and how students really feared them.
read more...»
