Examination Board: EdExcel
Students come to the subject either from Business Studies GCSE or as newcomers to the subject in the sixth form.
We consider it important that any student proposing to read economics at university, should study the subject at school, even when there is no formal requirement to do so. Experience suggests that economics taught in schools is often old fashioned neo-classical theory of little relevance to contemporary economic thought, or indeed to the modern requirements of examinations. Economics text books date very quickly. With on-line resources, we make use of the school's intranet, which can be up-dated to take account of the latest developments.
Economics is about choices:
Whether you're rich or poor, you can't have everything you want. Choosing to spend your money in a particular way, means deciding against all the alternatives. With your personal finances you may simply reply, "Well, I know what I like" but what about the country as a whole? Without an understanding of Economics the citizen today is ill equipped to answer the political questions which he or she is going to be asked.
This is a particularly exciting time for questions of this type.
Should the UK join the Euro, the single European Currency?
What should be the arrangements for new entrants to the EU?
What should be the minimum wage?
Should Western governments cancel Third World debt?
If these are the sort of questions that interest you, you should consider studying economics at Saint Martha’s.
The Specification
Unit 1 Competitive Markets: How they work and how they fail. The emphasis is on information problems in markets and factors influencing demand and supply of labour.
Unit 2 Managing the economy. Specific analysis of factors influencing the components of Aggregate Demand, such as the wealth effect on consumption and causes and costs of growth for developed and developing economies will be taught.
Unit 3 Business Economics and Economic efficiency. The emphasis will be on barriers to market entry and exit; and the economies of scale and game theory.
Unit 4 The Global Economy. This includes the use of policies by governments to achieve their Macro and microeconomic objectives; International Trade, (including exchange rates and comparative advantage) and globalisation; the competitiveness of different countries; poverty and inequality in countries and what can be done to prompt their growth and development
Assessment
Unit 1 50 percent weighting for the AS year; 25 % of the total GCE marks
Unit 2 50 percent weighting for the AS year; 25 % of the total GCE marks
Unit 3 40 percent weighting for the A2 year; 20 % of the total GCE marks
Unit 4 60 percent weighting for the A2 year; 30 % of the total GCE marks
A combination of assessment techniques are used – multiple-choice questions, where students have to write a justification of the answer chosen; data response questions, where the students apply shorter response answers to a context or essay type questions to enable students to develop their arguments, apply economic models or make links between different parts of the specification and draw their own conclusions.
