Air and Defence (Business) (Extended) Diploma Level 3

The cur­ricu­lum for the Air and Defence Career Col­lege is packed with enrich­ment activ­i­ties rang­ing from expert guest speak­ers from our indus­try part­ners , to exist­ing vis­its to RAF bases and indus­try work­places, along with res­i­den­tial vis­its and adven­ture training.

You will under­take 30 hours of work-relat­ed activ­i­ty linked close­ly to the Defence industry.

You will par­tic­i­pate in activ­i­ties around Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Eng­lish and Maths (STEM) and com­plete the Indus­tri­al Cadets Award.

You will par­tic­i­pate in gen­er­al and trade RAF sta­tion vis­its, along with a week-long res­i­den­tial vis­it devel­oped by the RAF.

You will also par­tic­i­pate in out­door and adven­tur­ous activ­i­ties, includ­ing high/​low ropes activ­i­ties; climb­ing and canoeing.

Stu­dents choos­ing to study this course are taught by expe­ri­enced lec­tur­ers, often spe­cial­ists in their field.

These are some of the main types of inter­nal assess­ment. We use a vari­ety of tech­niques to sup­port all learn­ing styles:

• writ­ten reports 
• cre­ation of finan­cial documents 
• projects
• posters, dis­plays, leaflets 
• record­ings of interviews/​role plays 
• work­ing log­books, reflec­tive journals 
• pre­sen­ta­tions with asses­sor questioning

You will also under­take one week’s worth of week expe­ri­ence each year which is relat­ed to your course units which will allow you get a real hands-on expe­ri­ence of indus­try issues. Year 1 is a retail based expe­ri­ence and in year 2 we ask you to find an expe­ri­ence you think you want to try for your future, whether it be Mar­ket­ing, Accoun­tan­cy, Event Man­age­ment, HRM, Busi­ness devel­op­ment, Oper­a­tions man­age­ment, or any area of busi­ness that inter­ests you.

5 GCSEs at grades 4/C or above includ­ing Eng­lish and maths, and an arts-based sub­ject at grade 6/B or above. 

Alter­na­tive­ly a Mer­it in a rel­e­vant Lev­el 2 Diplo­ma, and a GCSE grade 4/C in Eng­lish and maths, or a pass for func­tion­al skills Lev­el 2 Eng­lish and Maths.

This course requires an interview/​informal chat with the course leader for the Air Defence part of the pro­gramme, before a place can be offered.

A Mer­it in your first year is required to enter the sec­ond year Extend­ed Diploma. 

We will review each appli­ca­tion on a case-by-case basis to ensure you get a place on the course most suit­able for you.

One of the ways we do this is through a very effec­tive ​‘6 weeks to suc­cess pro­gramme’ that oper­ates from the first day you start your course. This includes sup­port such as (but not lim­it­ed to):

• Allow­ing you to change cours­es if you change your mind in the first 6 weeks — sub­ject to course avail­abil­i­ty
• Mov­ing you between course lev­els if you are find­ing your cur­rent lev­el too easy / too hard — sub­ject to course avail­abil­i­ty
• One-to-one reviews with your aca­d­e­m­ic tutor to ensure you are pro­gress­ing and achiev­ing well

Our course enquiries and admis­sions team can be con­tact­ed at enquiries@​stamford.​ac.​uk should you have any fur­ther questions.

Air and Defence Col­lege assess­ment will fol­low BRTC (basic recruit train­ing course) atti­tude goal require­ment at Grade A through­out your study. In addi­tion you will pre­pare and sit the Air­man Selec­tion Test (AST) for entry in to the RAF should you wish to do so. You will also par­tic­i­pate in the Indus­tri­al Cadet Aware writ­ten assign­ment, pre­sen­ta­tions and prac­ti­cal tasks, along­side oth­er per­son­al devel­op­ment focused projects.

You are assessed via assign­ments which are set in each unit through­out the Col­lege year. All assign­ments con­tain manda­to­ry Pass cri­te­ria relat­ing to the spe­cif­ic unit con­tent. High­er cri­te­ria (Mer­its and Dis­tinc­tions) are avail­able to stretch and chal­lenge you as a student.

Assign­ments vary between group and indi­vid­ual work, with many dif­fer­ent assess­ment meth­ods employed in order to reflect the real world of work and all class­work and assign­ment work is avail­able on Google class­room to ensure stu­dents have access to their work on a ²⁴⁄₇ basis.

All units stud­ied are sup­ple­ment­ed with enrich­ment activ­i­ties such as guest speak­ers, trips and cross cur­ric­u­la activ­i­ties and stu­dents are expect­ed to under­take one week of work expe­ri­ence each year. 

In Year 1 you will under­take one exter­nal­ly assessed con­trolled set assess­ment and one exter­nal exam­i­na­tion, with all oth­er units assessed internally.

In Year 2 you will under­take two exter­nal exam­i­na­tions, with all oth­er units inter­nal­ly assessed.

Inter­nal assess­ments include both indi­vid­ual and group work to enhance your learn­ing experience.

Trips, vis­its and guest speak­ers are an essen­tial part of your course and they devel­op your knowl­edge of dif­fer­ent career oppor­tu­ni­ties and allow you to add to the skills you are learn­ing at College.

You will vis­it The Bank of Eng­land and Hous­es of par­lia­ment to gain insight­ful knowl­edge of how the UK econ­o­my works and to under­stand the impact that Gov­ern­ment has on busi­ness and their activities.

You will also vis­it sev­er­al indus­try based busi­ness­es rel­e­vant to the course. You will work with and vis­it Bish­op Gros­seteste Uni­ver­si­ty to dis­cov­er their new and inno­v­a­tive Enter­prise degree.

You will par­tic­i­pate in Enter­prise chal­lenges and cre­ate your own small busi­ness, we also active­ly encour­age you to take part in indus­try lead com­pe­ti­tions such as Start-up Stam­ford, Insti­tute of Finan­cial Stud­ies, The Times Young econ­o­mist of the year, plus oth­er com­pe­ti­tions as they arise. You will meet suc­cess­ful busi­ness peo­ple from dif­fer­ent busi­ness sec­tors and back­grounds to inspire you and get top tips for future employment.

On suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of this course, you can progress to join the RAF. If you decide to not enter the RAF, you can still progress to fur­ther study such as the HND in Busi­ness at Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­tre Stam­ford or oth­er Busi­ness Degrees at Uni­ver­si­ty. You could also enter employ­ment in junior busi­ness roles in Mar­ket­ing, Admin­is­tra­tion, Finance, Events Man­age­ment or Human Resources.

The units you will study include:

• Explor­ing business 
• Devel­op­ing a mar­ket­ing campaign 
• Per­son­al and busi­ness finance 
• Man­ag­ing an event 
• Visu­al merchandising 
• Recruit­ment and selection 
• Inter­na­tion­al business 
• Prin­ci­ples of management 
• Busi­ness deci­sion making 
• Final accounts for pub­lic lim­it­ed companies 
• Dig­i­tal marketing 
• Pitch­ing for a new business 
• Inves­ti­gat­ing cor­po­rate social responsibility