The prelease came out at the end of November 2017 and is focused around the confectionary industry. This also links with a blog that I wrote last year about the Kraft and Cadbury takeover, ideal pre-reading for studying Edexcel.
The pre-release is an opportunity for students to do some of their own wider reading about this industry and link it to the bullet points laid out in the pre-release. This is very much a light touch ore-release from those that were used in the old BUSS4 for AQA.
Students will use the pre-release as the basis for application in the final exam they sit in the summer of 2018. All of paper 3 will focus questions around the confectionary industry and expect students to use not only the case studies given but all their own knowledge to form chains of analysis.
The exam board does not expect students to memorize large chunks of information and data, rather they are encouraged to take a holistic interest in the industry and recent trends. Teachers are able to support this by including activities for units 3 and 4 on the confectionary industry.
Some examples
- Watch Dispatches – 25 min programme about the Kraft/ Cadbury takeover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njgW-c3fAUk
- Ask students to complete a Boston Matrix and product portfolio analysis for Cadbury, Nestle and Mars.
- Complete a SWOT, and Ansoff’s matrix analysis for the companies in the industry.
- Complete a market map looking at the key dynamics of the industry.
- Analyse key financials for the industry.
- Examine the culture of kraft and the original culture of Cadbury.
- Analyse at the emergence of niche products into the market such as Divine chocolate, Hotel Cholate and gluten/dairy free options.
If teachers are able to adapt some of their activities to include this industry over the next few months then this should already create an awareness in the students of the types of trends that have been happening.
I would encourage every student to follow tutor 2u and their teachers on twitter to find out the latest news about the industry and example exam questions for the all-important Paper 3.
Donna Marie Jestin
