Our curriculum builds pupils’ confidence to think and act like young entrepreneurs. It starts with understanding how real businesses operate in Year 9, and grows into pupils planning, promoting and financially forecasting their own enterprise idea by the end of Year 11. Throughout, we want pupils to explore, plan and pitch like the business owners they study, not just complete a task.
Reading like an entrepreneur
Pupils learn to read business information — case studies, financial data and market information — before responding, looking at ownership, structure and what the figures actually tell them. In Year 9, that means reading a business case study to work out why it takes a particular ownership structure, such as sole trader, partnership or limited company.
Speaking like an entrepreneur
Pupils talk through business decisions and justify their thinking using precise commercial vocabulary, such as stakeholder, overheads, breakeven and cash flow, and give each other feedback on their ideas. We model phrases like ‘This affects the business because…’ and ‘I would recommend X because…’.
Thinking like an entrepreneur
Pupils weigh up opportunity and risk before reaching a decision, for example using SWOT and PEST to judge whether a business idea is viable, or interrogating a cash flow forecast for warning signs. What would you do if you were the owner? is the question we simply ask.
How we teach it
Learning is sequenced from understanding existing businesses to running one. Year 9 builds the foundations through Unit 1: Exploring Business, Unit 8: Recruitment, and a Finance unit covering costs, breakeven, profit and cash flow. The qualification itself then runs across Year 10 and Year 11: Component 1: Exploring Enterprises and Component 2: Planning for and Starting an Enterprise in Year 10, before Component 3: Promotion and Finance for Enterprise in Year 11, which builds towards the externally assessed marketing and finance exam.
How we check understanding
Pupils apply what they have learnt to real and imagined business scenarios, discussing their reasoning as well as completing assessed tasks. Regular low-stakes checks and end-of-unit assessments tell us what’s secure and what needs revisiting before the next unit begins.
How we support every learner
Lessons are adapted through modelled examples, writing frames for structured answers, and step-by-step support with calculations. That way, every pupil, including those with SEND or EAL, can explore, plan and evaluate business ideas with confidence.
Learning journey: Year 9 to Year 11
The qualification’s assessed components run across Year 10 and Year 11; Year 9 builds the foundations pupils need to access them.
| Year 9 | • Unit 1: Exploring Business — ownership and types of business, internal and external environments, organisational structures, SWOT and PEST.
• Unit 8: Recruitment — how and why businesses plan for and recruit people. • Finance unit — costs, breakeven, profit and cash flow forecasts. |
| Year 10 | • Component 1: Exploring Enterprises — researching a real enterprise critically.
• Component 2: Planning for and Starting an Enterprise — planning and costing their own enterprise idea, drawing on ownership, recruitment and financial planning. |
| Year 11 | Component 3: Promotion and Finance for Enterprise — developing a marketing and financial plan for their enterprise idea, building towards the externally assessed marketing and finance exam. |
What great looks like
This is the standard we are reaching for with every pupil, not just our strongest entrepreneurs.
| Year 9 | Pupils can explain why a business is structured and owned the way it is, recommend a recruitment approach for a given role, and calculate breakeven and a cash flow forecast — not just complete the calculation, but say what it shows. |
| Year 10 | Pupils research a real enterprise critically rather than describing it, and plan and cost their own enterprise idea, justifying its ownership, staffing and resourcing like a prospective owner. |
| Year 11 | Pupils develop a promotional plan and financial forecast for their enterprise idea, and defend both under questioning — the standard we want every pupil to reach in the exam. |
Help at home by…
- Asking your child to explain how a business idea makes money, not just what it does.
- Talking about businesses you encounter day to day — why they are a particular type of ownership, and who their stakeholders are.
- Encouraging them to check their own workings on costing and cash flow tasks rather than accept the first answer.
Looking at job adverts together and discussing what a business is looking for, and why.
