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Business Ownership: Private Sector - Lesson Plan: 2 x 1 hour lessons
A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with Business Ownership and are relevant to the following specifications:
- AQA: Module 3 (12.4)
- Edexcel: Unit 1
- OCR: Module 2871
Aim:
This section contains some important information but is often seen as being dry and difficult to teach effectively. In addition, the information contained in most textbooks tends to sanitise the whole area. The way that most deal with it is to cover the main points of each type and highlight the advantages and disadvantages. Examination questions - particularly on the case study type assessments - tend to ask students whether the type of ownership chosen by the individuals in the case study is appropriate. In reality, the issue of ownership is more complex. Large businesses tend to have multiple arms, all of which could have a different form of ownership. Part of the business may be 'floated', leaving other sections as limited companies. The Activity therefore tries to bring some of these issues into focus.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lessons, students should understand the following:
- The different forms of business ownership
- The advantages and disadvantages of different forms of business ownership
- The appropriateness of different forms of business ownership
- That business ownership can be more complex
- A number of key terms - holding company, venture capital, trusts, etc.
Resources:
Lesson Structure:
Lesson 1
- Begin the lesson by bringing into the class some examples of businesses from a Yellow Pages or a Thompson Local Directory. Ask students to think about who these businesses might be owned by and how they raised the finance and run the business. (This can be done in groups or individually.) (10 Minutes)
- Discuss with the class their findings - questions need to be asked to ensure that students begin to think about the appropriateness of their responses. For example, would they suggest that a local chimney sweep's business would have shareholders - if so why? (10 Minutes)
- Formalise the lesson by showing the PowerPoint Presentation on Business Ownership. This Presentation should be broken up - possibly leaving the issues relating to limited companies to the second lesson or maybe the discussion on co-operatives and franchises can be used at another time? The aim is to link the businesses they have been discussing to the types of business ownership highlighted in the Presentation. Questions can be asked throughout to make the link more explicit - looking up solicitors, etc. to show how common this form of business is in terms of partnerships. (It is worth commenting that such businesses have to be partnerships by law because they cannot hide behind the law in terms of being sued!) (30 minutes)
- Spend the last ten minutes encouraging students to reflect on what they have covered; write up their learning journals or have a question and answer session to help reinforce the learning objectives. (10 Minutes)
Lesson 2
- Begin the lesson by reflecting on the issues covered in the Introduction to Business Studies lesson. Hold a question and answer session or a handout (possibly based on the Mind Map) of the main issues. (5 minutes)
- Introduce two news articles from a current newspaper about some business takeover or similar that highlights an ownership issue (there is generally plenty of such information available in the broadsheet 'business' sections or on the Web - just type in 'flotation' or 'merger' into a search engine like 'Google'. The aim of this is to begin to highlight the fact that the issue of ownership can be more complex than the theory. At this point a return to the PowerPoint Presentation covering limited companies may be of benefit. The discussion may raise some key questions related to the Activity. (15 minutes)
- The students can then be given the Activity; go through the main story with the group and then set them on the task to find out some further background. The Activity introduces issues such as 'holding companies' and venture capital, which may not be a specified part of the specification but nevertheless are now part of the landscape of this area. The Activity can be a formal piece of work to hand in or used as the basis for further discussion following some student investigation. (30 minutes)
- The final part of this lesson can either be used to continue working on the Activity or to bring together some of the ideas raised. Students can, again, return to their journal to reflect on the issues raised. The main point here is to re-visit the learning objectives. (10 minutes)
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