Economics
The Business and Economics department at Sheffield Girls’ is a fantastic environment in which we focus on making Economics engaging and relevant to today.
The Business and Economics department at Sheffield Girls’ is a fantastic environment in which we focus on making Economics engaging and relevant to today. Economics A Level is a fantastic course that incorporates real-life situations to help students understand how Economics underpins society as a whole.
A Level Economics
Economics is a respected social science which opens the door to a vast range of university courses and careers.
It is one of the most relevant and interesting courses on offer to students at Advanced Level. Economics determines our pay, the jobs we do, the industries we work in, how we travel, where we live, the goods we buy, where we buy them and the price we pay! An understanding of this subject is an essential life skill.
The department consists of specialist economics teachers and examiners with many years’ combined experience. Our work as external examiners allows us to deliver the course material with examination technique in mind throughout. This, in turn, helps us to achieve outstanding academic results and to support students of all abilities. Many of our students go on to study Economics at top universities such as London School of Economics (LSE) and University College London (UCL).
The A Level Course
The standard definition of Economics is: the study of how our scarce resources are allocated to meet our unlimited wants as a society.
In our opinion, however, this definition does little to help people understand the subject! It is far more useful to outline the major topic areas and issues that students will address during your time as an economist at Sheffield Girls’ Sixth Form:
Microeconomics
From a base of microeconomic theory, this component will enable students to discuss and evaluate how well this theory explains our observations of economic agents in the real world.
The theoretical workings of the free market provide a useful starting point for explanation and analysis. Imperfections and market failures provide a lead into discussing the merits and drawbacks of government intervention and the usefulness of theory in explaining observations taken from the real world of economics.
Macroeconomics
This component will provide students with the technical and analytical tools required to understand how the macroeconomy functions on both the domestic and global scale. The course encourages students to adopt a critical approach to their study of policy through understanding the limitations and conflicts that they present. Policy approaches are also considered in a historical context to understand how macroeconomics has changed over time.
Themes in Economics
The third component of our A Level Economics course focuses on themes in economics. This is synoptic in nature and draws on content from both the microeconomics and macroeconomics components.
Co-curricular Activities and Educational Visits
There are a range of co-curricular activities to suit each of our Economics A Level students to enable them to explore the subject and apply learning in the real world. These include:
- The Royal Economics Society essay writing competition in Year 12 – students produce a piece of extended writing on a current economic issue.
- Economics Prefects roles – supporting department events and activities and working with younger learners and GCSE Business pupils.
- GAIN Investment Challenge – an annual stock pitch competition which aims to provide young women with a unique insight into the world of investment management and develop key business analysis skills.
- Economics conferences at a range of venues.
- London trip – visiting the London Stock Exchange, Bank of England, Canary Wharf and Bloomberg.
- New York trip – visiting key financial institutions of the USA and a range of tourist destinations.
