Sixth Form A Level activitiesTransitioning to Sixth Form activities -

Welcome to our Sixth Form A Level activities.

Business BTEC transition activities

Task 1:

This task gives you the opportunity to research a real business. This is something you will need to do regularly throughout the course as you will be required to draw on your knowledge of real business.

Choose a large business of your

How do you know if a business is large? A business that has plc after is name will be a large business. Some ltds are also large. Examples of large businesses include General Foods, Tata Jaguar Landrover, Tesco, P&G, Apple etc

Research this business using SCORE and summarise your findings in note

**SCORE is the technique we use to analyse any case study before answering questions.

Size and Sector – How many people work there? Is it a manufacturing business or is it the service sector? What is its market capitalisation?

Customers and competitors – who are the target market for this business (gender, age, geographic location, income group etc) and who are the main businesses that your chosen business competes with?

Objectives – what is the business aiming to achieve this year? Over the next few years?

Resources – is your business profitable? Does it have money to reinvest? Are the staff skilled?

External environment – what is happening outside of the business that may affect the decisions that the business takes. For example the growth of Aldi and Lidl in the UK caused Tesco to set up new aisles stocking discount products, so that they can compete directly with the discount supermarkets.

Business BTEC Task 2: Analysing the external environment.

The business environment is always changing. Developments in technology, changing tastes and fashions, political decisions (e.g. BREXIT), the ageing population, rises and falls in the economy, changes in legislation etc all present opportunities and threats to business.

To help analyse the external environment we use the acronym PESTLE

Political
Economic
Social
Technological
Legal
Environmental

Create a mind map to show the external influences on your chosen business.

Sixth Form A Level activities

Business BTEC Additional Tasks:

Task 1 : Solving a business problem

During the summer, months there are many Festivals taking place in the UK. At the end of the event, there are thousands of tents and camping equipment abandoned by festival goers.

The Task:

You have been tasked with writing a report, advising the Festival organisers how to deal with the aftermath of the event. You must bear in mind that you are a business.

Report Structure:

As a business, you will need to consider the following:

The name of your business
What would be the objectives for the task?
Identify what your problems might be – set the scene
Your proposal – with an explanation of how you are going to resolve the challenge You should consider the following:
Resources required
- Human – who you may need to support you o Financial – an overview of costs involved, Income you could receive. Alternatively, are you going to be charitable?
- Physical resources – materials and equipment
Marketing
- Selling – How are you going to dispose of what you have?
- Promotional Material – any flyers, advertisements you may need to design
Environmental consideration
Charitable causes

At the end of your report, you should summarise your recommendations.

Business BTEC Task 2:

In preparation for the content of the BTEC level 3 in Business you will need to undertake a research task on a business of your choice.

Think about Businesses that you can access lots of information on such as: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Pets at Home, Oxfam, Cancer Research……

Your Task:

You are to produce a report which gives answers to the following questions:

Who is the business? What year was it formed, products, owners, brief
What are the businesses aims, objectives and mission statement? This is often found on their website
What are its profits, revenues, costs etc for the last financial year? – This could be in the format of a table or graph and you should explain and compare it to other
How is the business owned? – Is it a sole trader, private limited company or public limited company?
Is it a non for profit organisation like a charity? If so, what does it spend the money on? How much does it raise? How does it raise money?
If it’s a PLC, what is its share price? Has this changed in the last 5 years?
Has the business been effected by external influences? These could be competitors, the economy, interest rates, inflation, unemployment.

Sixth Form A Level activities

A-level Classics: Classical Civilisations

The World of the Hero (40% of A-level)

Analysis and comparison of Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. What did it mean to be a hero in the ancient world?

Love and Relationships (30% of A-level)

Analysis and comparison of the ideas presented on love, sex, desire and marriage in the philosophical works of Plato and Seneca, as well as the literature of Ovid and Sappho. What were real and idealised love and relationships like in the ancient world?

Invention of the Barbarian (30% of A-level)

Analysis of the portrayal of Greeks, Persians and other non-Greeks in art and literature. Euripides’ Medea and Aeschylus’ Persians are the set texts for this module. How did the Greeks perceive and represent themselves and others?

Preparing to study at A-level

Below you will find a wide variety of resources. You can do the following tasks when looking at these resources:

Create a summary mind-map of the key points and ideas
Write a review of the What did you find most interesting / surprising / useful? Did you enjoy it and why (not)? What questions did it raise for you and what would you want to research next?
Build up a glossary of key terms, figures and places.
Write a magazine article or an essay identifying links and contrasts between the ancient and modern

Transitioning to Sixth Form activities

Try our 16+ Practice Exam Papers

A LEvels Classics

Suggested essay titles

What were the main achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans?

Which classical site would you most like to visit and why?

What do the ancient myths tell us about ancient society?

Why is ancient mythology still so captivating for us today?
What lessons can we learn from [insert Greek/Roman philosopher or writer]?
How has democracy developed since its birth in ancient Athens?
How do Homeric heroes and Hollywood heroes compare?
What similarities and differences exist between the experiences of women in the ancient and modern worlds?
What influences from the Classical world do we see in our everyday lives?
Why should we study Classics?

Sixth Form A Level activities

Computer Science A Level

Starting the sixth form course (AQA A-Level Computer Science H446)

Welcome to the Computing A-Level! It is a really good time to be studying Computing, with our social and working lives seemingly being ever more virtual, and the need for these skills in the future increasing all the time. The A-Level has several aims which can be described as:

Giving you an advanced level of Computing skills across a wide range of topics, not just programming, including networking and database design
Teaching you advanced programming techniques especially Object Oriented Programming which will be new to you
Undertaking a coursework project of your choosing
Reflecting on the ethics and morality of Computing and its impact on society and values
Introducing you to the wider Computing community and giving you options for further study

Please don’t worry about the disruption to your GCSEs having an impact on your A Level. Everyone will be in the same boat and we will discuss together any issues that have emerged over the past year. We look forward to seeing you next year.

Sixth Form A Level activities

A Level Computing introduction

The exam boards plan the A-Level with the idea in mind that you have done the Computing GCSE first. If you have done the GCSE (apart the exams themselves!), please take a chance in the weeks before September to review your GCSE notes, in particular on:

Data types and variables
Programming constructs such as IF, FOR, WHILE
How the CPU works

If you haven’t taken the GCSE before that’s fine but please contact me, Mr Jones on ajones@sacredh.lbhf.sch.uk at your next opportunity so we know and can support you.

You may like to bring in a laptop (‘bring your own device’) for the lessons, this is allowed. Would you please let me know by email if you think you will be able to bring in your own device so we can get an idea of numbers. If you

won’t be doing that, that’s fine, you’ll be able to use our computer suite and a set of laptops we have which are dedicated to the computing A-Level.

Choosing a programming language and reflecting on Computing

When you start your coursework you will be able to choose your programming language within reason. You can stay with Python but you might like to learn C# for example. Why not research:

C#
PHP
Java

And just get a feel for their differences and how they are used. The website w3schools is useful. You will also need to be able to do some web design using HTML and CSS – again look at w3schools.

Extra Computing A Level areas to look at

It’s also a good idea to keep up to date with what’s going on in Computing. Have a look at the Register – https://www.theregister.co.uk/ – an IT newspaper which has a lot of the latest news.

A part of the A Level is looking at ethical issues in Computing and a good place to start would be with these films:

Imitation Game
2001: Space Odyssey
Steve Jobs (2015)

What is the popular image of computing and the relationship between people and machines?

A Level Computer gaming (optional)

Don’t worry if you’re not into computer games, it’s not a part of the course and it won’t disadvantage you if you don’t enjoy them at all.

We will however sometimes use computer games as examples of topics in the course such as graphics, CPUs and object oriented programming. You will not need to purchase anything, it will all be provided.

If you are interested, here is a game for which the original code is also online. I will explain it next year but you can take a look now if you are keen. ‘Red Alert’ was a classic computer game from the 1990s which set the bar for strategy games at the time. Although it looks dated now it was groundbreaking at the time. Since then the source code has been released in a free version made by some keen hobbyists which means that we can explore how it

works in the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the code and even change the way the game works. You can download Red Alert (called OpenRA in its new version) here: https://www.openra.net/download/

Have a go and have fun! You can even play against each other. There is a tutorial here: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/How-to-be-a-better-OpenRA-player

Don’t worry if computer games aren’t your thing, there will be plenty of other options after we start.

Sixth Form A Level activities