Former Student - Update

You may recall I blogged a few months ago about former student Michael Border's visit to the college whilst he was home on holiday from university. I managed to persuade him to write an article about his first few months away at the University of Worcester where he is studying Business Management. Thanks for taking the time to write for us Michael:

The summer of 2011 brought to an end seven memorable years at Newton Abbot College and a time of my life that I will never forget because of highlights such as completing the Ten Tors challenge in 2008 which is an event that I highly recommend everyone to take part in.

Results day in August 2011 was the beginning of a new chapter of my life by achieving the results that I needed to get into the University of Worcester and carry on my education in business management.  That day made the previous two years of hard work worthwhile as it allowed me to go on to another exciting period.

University is an experience that I would recommend that everyone takes on because it is such an exciting time.  Since I moved to the University of Worcester I have made so many friends from all over the country and got myself involved in lots of societies that allow you to meet lots of new people both inside and outside of the university.

Freshers’ week is one of the best weeks of the year because there is no work and the university put on lots of activities for freshers to take part in.  At the university of Worcester there were many events that took place in the evenings that help you to get to know lots of new people.  For example there was a pub quiz that they put on which we took part in as a flat from my halls of residence, and a ghost walk that visited many of Worcester’s older buildings which was very interesting.  Also there was the Ffreshers’ Ball at which Alex Zane and Chris Fountain were the DJs. 

During the first semester there have been lots of acts performing in the local nightclub including all of the X Factors finalists as they get kicked out of the show! The following week they will perform in Worcester and many other universities.  Also during this semester on one of the nights we have had “I’m a Celebrity “runner up Mark Wright doing a DJ set.

Overall, the step from Newton Abbot College to university is the best decision that I have made because it has meant that I have made so many great friends that I will never forget.  It is an experience that everyone who has the opportunity should take.  Remember though, there is a lot of hard work too - so be prepared.

Mike Border

Developing your exam technique in A Level Business Studies

Doing well in your exams is not just about what you know. It's also about the application of your understanding to a given case study, providing an analysis where you develop a balanced argument and then stating your opinion and providing an evaluation.

Below is a presentation taking you through how you can achieve higher-level answers in the exam. The presentation looks at each assessment objective and breaks it down so that you can see what the examiner is looking for when they are marking your work. It is also available on Moodle.

One thing that we are starting to notice more when marking AS and A Level answers is the lack of planning involved in answering the question you have been given.  Included in the power point is one proven method known as PEE, this stands for Paragraph point, Evidence (examples & explanation) and Evaluation. This planning tool makes you think about what you are going to write so that you can carefully plan how you will be able to develop an argument and support your argument with evidence from the case study, thus enabling you to write a higher-level answer.

Try using these techniques in the next practice exam question and see if you can achieve that higher-level answer.

Student Blogpost

By Sam Dennis (Year 13)

Student2Student Teaching Episode: Investment Appraisal

The objective of our lesson was to teach our fellow students how to calculate and use average rate of return as a method of investment appraisal. We aimed also to show some advantages and disadvantages of using average rate of return and how you would answer an exam question on it.

In our lesson we decided to include a lot of different tasks that involved around average rate of return. We decided to do this as we thought that it would keep the class involved and then they would not get bored. We put in a short exam question to work on in pairs just to show what they could expect if it came up in an exam. We also included a beat the teacher game and a quiz at the end to make sure the students had been listening and to see what they remembered. We also issued a hand out at the end so that they could have some revision notes for when the exam comes up.

Looking back at the feedback from who we taught, some of the positives were:

·         We put in a lot of tasks for them to do so it kept them involved and listening.

·         As we ran through an example with them it showed how easy it was to understand. This means they can look back at the example if they get stuck.

However we also got some “Even Better If” feedback which suggested that if we were going to do this lesson again then we should have included some pictures or graphs in  our presentation so that it was a bit more visual and more interesting to look at.

Click below to view our presentation: