BTEC Nationals in Business: delivery support
This page will help you to plan your delivery of our Level 3 (RQF) BTEC Nationals in Business.
You may also be interested in a sister page which tries to support your understanding of the assessment of the qualification.
There are five qualifications in this sector:
- BTEC Level 3 National Certificate in Business (180 GLH) 601/7155/8
- BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate in Business (360 GLH) 601/7159/5
- BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Business (510 GLH) 601/7161/3
- BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Business (720 GLH) 601/7157/1
- BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in Business (1080 GLH) 601/7160/1.
Getting started
Your first step will depend on whether or not your school or college already has, or needs to apply for, centre approval. If your centre is already approved, or once you have centre approval, the next step is to obtain programme approval.
Once these preliminary steps have been taken you are ready to embark on the twelve steps of the delivery cycle. The whole process has been summarised on the page below (Getting started with BTEC).
Recruiting learners
We have a BTEC Student and Parent's guide with posters available to download. These materials include information on where a BTEC can take your learners, including stories from successful BTEC students.
Prospective learners may also be interested in our partnerships with professional bodies, partnerships which are especially relevant to units 28-35 of this BTEC National.
- Download the options evening materials
- Download the Business toolkit
- BTEC Business Professional Bodies Partnerships

Delivery planning
The order in which you teach the units will depend very much on your approach to the qualification. If you plan the course over two years you have a degree of freedom which you don't have if you adopt a staged certification approach.
The staged registration/certification approach involves registration for a smaller sized qualification in Year 1 and topping up to the larger qualification in Year 2, for example delivering the Extended Certificate in the first year and then topping up to the Diploma in the second year.
Delivery considerations
The units are not all the same size:
- the mandatory units are either 90glh or 120glh
- the optional units are all 60glh
Induction
We have a number of activity sheets available suitable for your induction programme.You can find thse in the Zip file blow called 'Skills for Learning and Work'
These activity sheets aim to foster awareness-raising, discussion, and learning with opportunities for the teacher to confirm and consolidate points out of discussion.The sheets focus on:
- personal student organisational skills (learning and thinkin, understanding assessment, planning for study and work, time management)
- writing based skills (researching, analysing and noting information, citing and referencing to avoid plagiarism, the writing process, essy-styl assignments, report-writing, revision skills)
- personal self-development skills (team work, presentations skills, employability and personal skills, self development)
Unit planning
The BTEC Delivery Guide provides delivery guidance for all units and we also have schemes of work for the first seven units (the mandatory units).
A free resource
Two Teachers have created a number of short video clips which cover content from the BTEC Nationals including:
- Unit 2 (Marketing Mix 7Ps)
- Unit 3 (Functions of Money, current accounts, ratios, depreciation)
- Unit 6 (Management and Leadership)
Paid-for resources
Pearson publishers have student books (paper and digital), teaching packs and revision books:
- Student book 1 covers units 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 14, 16, 22 and 23.
- Student book 2 covers units 5, 6, 7, 19 and 21.
- There are teaching packs for units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 19, 21, 22 and 23.
- There are revision resources for units 2, 3, 6 and 7
Networking
We have a BTEC Facebook group where you can share ideas and post questions. The group has over 2000 members.
As well as the Facebook group there is a new, public, subject community where you will be able to see all posts without logging in, although you will need to log in with your Edexcel Online details to post a comment.
Subject advisor
Colin Leith
Business
