Business education lessons need to be more ‘inspiring’ and ‘hands-on’, says Ofsted
Young people are eager to learn about business and economics, but their keenness is not always matched by the quality of teaching they receive, which too often is ‘thorough but uninspiring’ and fails to bring a real sense of excitement to learning.
These were the findings of a report, ‘Developing young people’s economic and business understanding’ published today by Ofsted - the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills.
It found that although there was much to celebrate in business education, around a third of lessons were thorough but uninspiring. There was too much ‘talking-at’ pupils, and an over-dependence on worksheets.
In around half the 118 schools and colleges visited, students complained that they had insufficient direct contact with businesses and ‘hands-on’ experiences, such as running mini enterprises. They were also disappointed that they could not make more use of the knowledge and understanding they gained through work experience placements and part-time jobs in their assessed work.
Over the past 25 years the Government has attempted to develop economic and business understanding for all 14-16 year old students through a series of initiatives and curriculum developments. Despite this, Ofsted found this component remains the least well developed aspect of work-related learning, and students’ basic understanding is generally still weak.
One reason why teaching was not better was the variable availability and quality of professional development for business and economics teachers; this was ‘good’ in only just over half the schools and ‘satisfactory’ in the rest.