Junior cycle business studies has been designed for a minimum of 200 hours of timetabled student engagement across the three years of junior cycle. The Classroom-Based Assessments will be set at a common level and there will be a common level externally-assessed final assessment.

In planning a course, the teacher will take account of the need to provide a wide range of opportunities for students to have meaningful and stimulating learning experiences across a broad range of contexts. The business environment is a dynamic one, and contemporary references to business and current affairs should be incorporated into the business classroom.

Planning needs to consider curriculum progression in terms of skills development and the development of the knowledge and understanding of the fundamental concepts. Teachers can plan to focus on the development of key skills through student-centred activities, recognising that any one activity does not always require students to develop the full range of key skills. Opportunities for more detailed and comprehensive activities can be included when students have developed the confidence and capacity to apply key skills in increasingly complex learning situations. All students, including those with a specific physical or learning need, should be enabled to participate in the learning activities of business studies with their peers at the appropriate level and with due consideration to health and safety requirements.

Business studies can facilitate students to pursue their individual interests. This specification aims to maintain a balance between the depth and breadth of the subject. This affords a reasonable degree of freedom for teachers to facilitate learning in a way that reflects students’ own choices, curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit. Achieving learning outcomes should be planned in a way that is active, stimulating and genuinely responds to students’ real-life experience.