Are you confused by questions such as:

• Why are interest rates so low?
• Is it better to collect taxes through VAT or on income?
• What are the implications of hard or soft Brexits?
• How can we solve the UK’s ‘productivity gap’?

All these questions regularly come up in the news and if we understand the economic language that is used and the economic principles that the government and businesses make decisions by, we can develop an informed opinion, and defend it.

Economics at Francis Holland

We have an excellent bank of printed and online resources covering both years of the linear A Level syllabus. There is a wealth of practice material for girls to use in and out of class. Our pupils’ progress is monitored closely so that they can be given specific feedback on the knowledge and skills they have mastered, and what needs to be revised – diagnostic feedback. We pay attention to ‘meta-learning’ (learning about the process of learning) because each girl will have her preferred learning style. Of course, we also attend lectures on a range of topics and visit the Bank of England.

Economics is a social science that comes in two ‘flavours’

In macroeconomics, we look at how government policies seek to achieve low unemployment, steady economic growth, price stability, a rise in worker productivity and a balance in the trade with other countries. These aims are often tricky to achieve because they conflict with each other. That is why the government usually uses a different policy for each of these aim. For example, to control inflation, the Bank of England uses Monetary Policy. To make the economy more productive, we use supply-side policy. And to try to balance the government budget and collect taxes, we use fiscal policy.

Microeconomics is about the buying and selling of particular goods between firms and consumers. We look at the resources that produce them, investigate how markets arrive at prices and work out whether we should produce on a small or on a large scale to minimise costs. Then there are all the ways in which markets fail to arrive at a price that correctly reflects the supply and demand for the product. For example, some goods should be more in demand than they actually are, because they are better for us than we appreciate. The government can become involved in such markets, for example with the ‘sugar tax’ or by providing free education for all.