Career Academy / BTEC Business Round-up

Posting by Ranjit Hayer, Business Studies teacher and Career Academy Co-ordinator

Half-term is upon us and I think we could all do with a break. The BTEC Business students – and in particular those that are part of the Career Academy – have had an incredibly term so far.

The Career Academy have visited Solihull MBC, Solihull Police, npower, and Her Majesty’s Revenues & Customs in recent months. This week, they added Arup in the Blythe Valley park in Shirley to their list of destinations.

Arup have hosted several Career Academy events for us and on this occasion, the students were given a presentation by the Commercial Director Mike Evans and a tour by Director David Stevens who has been a keen supporter of Career Academy since the college began the programme.

We learnt how Arup don’t make ‘sales’ in the traditional sense, but instead receive fees as they design buildings for their clients. This ranges from the design for the iconic Bull Ring to a project they are currently working on for the HS2, the high speed link between Birmingham and London. The students also learnt about Arup’s involvement in the designing of some of the Olympic buildings in London for 2012.

The students learnt how the current economic climate has meant that Arup have had to find new projects abroad. For example, the announcement that the Football World Cup that will take place in Brazil in 2018 has meant that Arup have already opened offices there and plan to design buildings in preparation for this.

We thank Mike Evans and David Stevens for giving up their valuable time and we look forward to visiting Arup again in July for our end-of-year celebration event.

Away from the Career Academy, all the students on the BTEC Extended Diploma Business course benefitted from a talk by Philip Lloyd Williams, Director of Governance and Solicitor to the Council this week. He came into College to assist students with their unit on the Law making process.

Philip went through how judges look at case law to cover the gaps that Acts of Parliament leave open, due to some laws being made years ago. He also discussed a famous landmark case that changed the responsibilities businesses have towards their customers, called the Donogue v Stephenson case. This case involved a customer finding a decomposed snail in their ginger beer! He explained how this case developed what we now regularly regard as the ‘duty of care’.

All the students enjoyed this talk and can now begin their last assignment of their BTEC unit in Year 12.