New GCSE Business: Cracking the Quantitative Skills

Introduction

As new GCSE 9-1 Business specifications begin first teaching, many teachers will be considering how to ensure their students have the confidence and competence to meet the assessed quantitative requirements. This article aims to consider some of the challenges posed by this reform and suggests strategies to overcome these.

Quantitative skill requirements

Eighteen months prior to first teaching, the Department for Education (DfE) published the Business GCSE subject content. From this, the exam boards began interpreting and developing “what” should be covered within their specifications. Included alongside subject knowledge were details of the quantitative skills to be embedded within all GCSE 9-1 Business specifications. The DfE provided instruction stating that specifications must include coverage of the development of mathematical skills and their application to business contexts. Specifically, the document requires the following:

Calculations in a business context, including:

• percentages and percentage changes
• averages
• revenue, costs and profit
• gross profit margin and net profit margin ratios
• average rate of return
• cash-flow forecasts, including total costs, total revenue and net cash flow

Interpretation and use of quantitative data in business contexts to support, inform
and justify business decisions, including:

• information from graphs and charts
• profitability ratios (gross profit margin and net profit margin)
• financial data, including profit and loss, average rate of return and cash-flow forecasts
• marketing data, including market research data
• market data, including market share, changes in costs and changes in prices

Sharing best practice

All exam boards have embedded these requirements, verbatim, within their specifications, emphasising the rigidity with which they must be adhered to if students are to be prepared for assessments when 10% of the marks are available for quantitative skills. For teachers, the challenge is to develop these skills with their students whilst enhancing numerical confidence so that students can ably apply these skills to business contexts. Creating a low-threat environment is therefore crucial as is developing consistency with teaching and learning approaches for numeracy. In a bid to aid confidence, it is imperative that, in business lessons, quantitative skills are not taught differently to in maths lessons. Although differences in teaching would achieve the same results, this may lead to student confusion. Continuing to strengthen links with the maths department will be key to this and this article now suggests a possible resource which could be developed and used by business teachers to ensure they are mirroring the methods used by maths teachers. It is envisaged that a business teacher would provide the following example document to the maths department for their completion. Below is an example for calculating percentages, and as with all quantitative skills, it is important to provide examples from across the full specification when developing contextualised questions.

By asking for a step-by-step breakdown, business teachers can be confident that they are emulating maths instruction and best practice in their own delivery. Hopefully this can also be reciprocal and may help maths teachers provide real world examples when modelling calculation skills in their lessons. Contextualised business questions are provided: first for the maths department to model the answers, and second to provide a deeper appreciation of the use business makes of each quantitative technique. Although there is a requirement for calculation and interpretation within all GCSE 9-1 Business specifications, to avoid over-complication and confusion, at least initially, working together with maths on calculation alone may be desirable.

Developing confidence and competence

Once these skills have been modelled, we must ensure that students not only feel confident and competent in their calculation but also in their interpretation. To this end, providing engaging challenge is helpful with incremental development. A strategy for engagement that provides challenge but in a low-stakes environment is a take on the popular ‘Snapchat’ application which is something that many students already know lots about! It is this familiarity and the popularity of collecting ‘Snapstreaks’ within a private peer environment that provides the confidence needed to transfer an activity they enjoy into a setting where they are less confident. Hopefully the joining of the two will help to bridge the gap so that students will engage confidently in a numeracy based activity. Once a skill has been learnt, it can be used throughout the course to provide opportunities for practice with and application and interpretation to different areas of subject content, for example, percentages are used when considering the range of functional areas.

An example of how a ‘Snapchat’ and ‘Snapstreak’ activity could be utilised is summarised below:

1. The teacher models the calculation of percentages to the class ensuring that the modelling replicates the approach taken by the maths team
2. A whole class activity then takes place to generate 10 example questions set within a business context testing, applying and interpreting the skill previously modelled
3. In ‘Snapstreak’ pairs, students will take it in turns to answer a question from the pre-determined list of 10. For every question answered correctly, a ‘Snapstreak’ score of 1 is achieved by both students with a maximum score of 10 being available
4. An incorrect answer from either student during the activity returns both students to their starting score (initially zero) but this can be re-built by a further ten marks through attempting the ten questions again
5. Students finish the activity and each record their ‘Snapstreak’ score. This can then be taken forward for next time. This should be many times throughout the two years and should examine content from across the specification
6. Every time the activity is reused, students should select another partner so that throughout the course there has been an opportunity for all students to work together whilst still retaining their personal score throughout
7. Students could record their ‘Snapstreak’ score on a leader board to provide a sense of competition. Anonymity may be provided using their own pre-determined usernames so that whole class results can be compared without disclosing students’ identities.

Samuel Stones is Deputy Curriculum Leader of Maths, Computing and Business at Norton College.

Kathy Cameron is a PGCE Business Tutor, School Direct Programme Leader and a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University.

Reference list

Department for Education (2015) Business GCSE subject content, www.gov.uk