Balancing the books: continuity and change within the new business GCSE
Qualifications Manager, Kate Russell, takes a deep dive into the new GCSE Business qualification and the key changes for teachers and learners.
The world in which businesses operate is constantly changing.
Businesses are having to respond to more significant economic, technological, social and environmental events than ever before. As a result, it is more important than ever that learners are equipped to understand real-world business contexts, understand business and its value to individuals, community, and prosperity, and to feel empowered to be enterprising.
What has changed in the new GCSE Business qualification?
There have been changes to GCSE Business, in terms of both content and assessment. These changes have been brought about in response to the Curriculum for Wales, consultation feedback and co-creation with stakeholders.
Refinements to content
The new GSCE in business builds on the strengths of the existing qualification.
Learners will continue to have the opportunity to develop an understanding of business fundamentals, exploring stakeholders, supply chains, business growth and marketing strategies.
However, there are some important changes in content to ensure that the qualification aligns to the Curriculum for Wales, with a greater focus on businesses in their locality. For example, learners are required to understand business processes, incentives, and outcomes, within their cynefin, and how these can influence opportunities for prosperity.
The new GCSE also considers the contributions made to businesses by a range of different groups within society, including those of Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and individuals.
Changes to assessment
Consistent with other GCSEs within the humanities area of learning and experience, the new GCSE in business will include two non-examination assessments (NEA). NEA will contribute 40% of the overall grade.
Although this increases the overall assessment time in comparison with the existing qualification, there are clear benefits to increasing the proportion of NEA. One of the NEA units provides learners with the opportunity to plan an entrepreneurial activity, while the other enables them to investigate a business that operates within their locality.
NEA will specifically enable schools to consider local contexts to a greater extent than would be possible in an exam, helping learners to understand the relationship between business and society in a more relevant and real-life sense.
As well as enabling more localisation within the qualification, the NEA tasks also provide greater opportunity to assess the use and application of skills and techniques relevant to business, such as data analysis.
Supporting centres through change
There is a wide range of support available to teachers as they prepare to deliver the new business qualification from September 2025.
WJEC has published a range of dedicated bilingual digital resources for this qualification and delivered face-to-face ‘preparing to teach’ events last term. You can also catch up on WJEC’s specification walk-through here.