Syllabus: AQA - GCSE Business
Module: Business in the Real World
Lesson: 3.1.7 Expanding a Business

Introduction

This article supports the AQA GCSE Business specification, specifically Unit 3.1.7: Expanding a Business within the “Business in the Real World” topic. This unit is essential for helping students understand how and why businesses grow, the methods they use to expand, and the impact this can have on operations, employees, and wider society. Taught well, it offers rich connections to real business stories and future career pathways, all while building analytical and evaluative thinking.

Aligned directly with the AQA specification【21】, this article is designed to support teachers with plug-and-play guidance, assessment tips, and classroom relevance that works.

Key Concepts

Students should understand:

• Internal (organic) growth such as new products, new markets, and increased output.

• External (inorganic) growth including mergers, takeovers, and franchising.

• The advantages and disadvantages of each growth method.

• The impact of growth on marketing, operations, finance, and human resources.

• Issues around integration, including diseconomies of scale and cultural clashes.

These points tie directly to AQA’s syllabus under 3.1.7【21】, ensuring exam relevance and clarity on expected content knowledge.

Real-World Relevance

Business expansion isn’t theory—it’s daily headlines. Take Greggs, which used internal growth to expand product lines and footprint, or Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram as a case of external growth via takeover. Even closer to home, think of your local gym turning into a franchise or a college opening a new satellite campus.

These examples help bring to life the decisions businesses face when choosing how to grow, and the risks and rewards that follow. It also opens up room to explore ethics and sustainability—are some growth strategies better for society than others?

How It’s Assessed

In AQA GCSE Business, questions on expansion often involve:

• Short-answer questions (2–4 marks): e.g. define internal growth or give one advantage of a merger.

• Application-based questions (6–9 marks): usually ask students to analyse a situation and justify a decision.

• Extended response questions (12 marks): often evaluate two growth options, requiring students to argue both sides before making a judgement.

Look out for command words like explain, analyse, and justify. Encourage students to practise using real business contexts and balance arguments with evaluative phrasing like “this depends on…”

Enterprise Skills Integration

Expansion links directly to the core enterprise skills we champion:

• Problem-solving – choosing between growth options, forecasting challenges.

• Decision-making – evaluating the best form of growth for a given context.

• Critical thinking – analysing the risks of over-expansion or poor integration.

• Communication – writing balanced, reasoned responses in extended questions.

You can bring these skills into lessons with tools like MarketScope AI to analyse growth strategies, or roleplay activities where students act as business consultants advising on expansion paths.

Careers Links

Expansion strategies connect clearly with:

• Business development roles (e.g. Growth Manager, Franchise Consultant)

• Marketing and market research – finding new markets to enter.

• Finance – funding mergers or capital investment.

• Human Resources – managing the impact of rapid growth on workforce.

For Gatsby Benchmark alignment:

• Benchmark 4: Direct curriculum linking.

• Benchmark 5/6: Invite local businesses to talk about growth, or run virtual Q&A panels.

These links help students see that business knowledge isn’t just for the exam hall—it’s a toolkit for the real world.

Teaching Notes

Time-saving tip: Start the lesson with a “growth story” students already know—Nando’s, Netflix, even Aldi—and map it to internal vs. external methods. This builds early engagement and makes abstract concepts relatable.

Common pitfalls:

• Students often confuse internal with organic farming! Emphasise that “organic” in business just means “from within”.

• Many think franchising is a form of ownership, not a growth strategy—make this clear with case examples.

Extension ideas:

• Use our Pitch Deck Analyser tool to have students present a growth pitch and receive peer feedback.

• Bring in newspaper articles about recent business acquisitions and hold mini debates on the outcomes.

Differentiation: Use dual coding (flow charts of growth methods), scaffolded writing frames for 9- and 12-mark questions, and sentence starters for mixed-ability groups.