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Welcome to Reigate College’s Business Department.

My name is Nicola Thompson and I’m Head of A Level Business. Business is a popular choice for many students and I’m looking forward to welcoming you to our thriving department in person at the beginning of the academic year.

Before you start the course, I’d like you to complete a series of tasks and activities over the coming months that will prepare you for A Level study and introduce you to some of the topics we’ll be covering. Please also keep following the news and read the business sections of newspapers, journals and other on-line resources.

The tasks are organised in three distinct steps and should all be completed by Choices Day on 27 August 2025. This is to give you the best insight into what the courses will be like and/or help prepare you for them.

Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process. If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.

New Starters Course Tasks and Activities

Release date Suggested Completion Dates
Explore your Subject1 June 1 July
Get Going1 June1 August
Aim High1 June1 September

Explore your Subject

Business is all around us and covers a wide variety of topics.

1. Keep up-to-date with current issues affecting Businesses.

Read the Business sections of one of the respected broadsheets. For example:

2. Consider what the major factors are, that affect Businesses, both nationally and internationally.

Some of the themes you might consider include:

  • Russia and affect of transportation and Red Sea Crisis – impact on global trade
  • Inflation in the UK due to war and the global pandemic – how its affected business process
  • Brexit – the impact on the UK Economy and the UK’s position in the world

3. Take a look at and bookmark the following websites:

4. Listen to the following Radio Programmes:

5. Watch the following YouTube Videos:

6. Listen to the ‘Business as Usual’ Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_8LQKi5BuU

This is good for thinking about current issues, and is also good for revision.

7. Look at the A Level and BTEC Business course specifications:

This will help you make a decision between studying A Level and BTEC Business, if you’re still undecided.

8. Read some Business related books:

For example, you could read:

  • “Business Adventures” by John Brooks
  • “The force behind the brand” by Jeff Bezos
  • “Shoe Dog: A memoir by the creator of Nike” by Phil Night
  • “Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Space X and Tesla is Shaping our Future”

9. Watch Business-related films:

Dumb Money (2021) – David vs. Goliath tale about everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (the video game store) into the world’s hottest company.

Dumb Money film poster

The Big Short (2015) – Examines the 2008 Credit Crunch and explains why it happened and whether the banks have learnt any lessons.

The Founder (2017) – The true story of how Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton), a struggling salesman from Illinois, met Mac (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman), who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. Kroc soon manoeuvres himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a multi-billion dollar empire

Get Going

Business Research Skills

Exploring a range of sources and selecting information that is both valid and reliable to support your argument is a key skill, needed in Business. For both the A Level and BTEC Business courses contextualisation is important – in other words, you need to be constantly on the look-out for real-life, practical examples, that you could use as case studies or refer to.

Reliable sources can be found across a variety of mediums.

You should record your findings in a Word document. If you don’t have access to a computer, then please just record them with a pen and paper or be creative, maybe use a chain of postcards or develop a mini book report.

Activity

Cadbury regularly produces promotional campaigns for different markets and different target customers. Cadbury’s marketing team is very good at ‘hiding’ messages within their adverts. 

For each of the four videos below, please answer the following questions:

  • What do you think the main message is?
  • What do you think is good about the promotional campaign?
  • What do you think could be done to improve it?

Cadbury Dairy Milk – Your Always Birthday

Cadbury Dairy Milk | Cadbury Garage

Cadbury – This doesn’t need to end

Cadbury Dairy Milk | ‘Donate your words’ | Manchester United

Aim High

Using newspaper articles and social media for research

Building on the research activities completed in the earlier tasks, the next focus is to learn how to use newspaper articles as a research source. A large number of stories are printed on a daily basis; some are new and some focus on a recurring topic.

The purpose of research is to identify the key points in stories and then begin to assess the impact they have on different individuals and businesses. To be successful on the A Level Business course, you need to be able to then take this information and analyse the response made by businesses in different situations. Often there will be different approaches made by businesses, with different levels of success.

Activity 1

Part 1: Select one of the newspapers listed in the ‘Explore your Subject’ section, access their Business news each day for a week, and choose one of the articles.

The following newspaper websites are all recommended:

Each day for seven days, write a digital blog, recording the stories, listing:

  • The date
  • The title of the article
  • The author
  • The main issues highlighted in the article
  • Any positive and/or negative impact on businesses, consumers or communities
  • Any details on the likely response such as action, reactions and policies

Part 2: At the end of the week, review the various issues and approaches made by the businesses mentioned. What similarities can you identify?

You can do this by writing a short report or use text dictation and read it out as if you are informing a group of investors.

Activity 2:

You should get into the habit of checking the Business sections of newspapers (physical and online) on a regular basis, whether in a physical newspaper or online. Please aim to do this at least once a week over the summer, selecting at least two news articles.

Compare it – Go to another newspaper website and read the same story and identify any differences in how it’s reported.

Full Reflection

Using a PowerPoint slide, design a STANDOUT article with your findings, showing the differences on how it’s reported between the two sources (online articles/newspapers).

Nicola Thompson
Nicola Thompson – Head of Business
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