Our Year 12 Economics students demonstrated outstanding leadership and initiative this week by organising and delivering a highly successful, professional GDST wide Economics conference. Reaching out across the GDST network, our students invited peers from sister schools to join them for a day of insightful, high-level economic debate.
The conference tackled pressing global and domestic issues and featured an impressive lineup of expert guest speakers:
The Power of Small: Breaking the Poverty Cycle with Microfinance
Reeve Isaacs-Smith (Fundraising and Partnerships Lead, Microloan Foundation)
An insightful look at how hyper-local, small-scale financial loans can completely transform lives and economies developing nations.
Fair Britain – UK Inequality
Milla Lupton (Trustee of The Equality Trust)
A deeply engaging session exploring the socio-economic factors driving inequality closer to home and the structural changes needed to address it.
Can Money Buy Happiness? Measuring Well-being
Barry Grimes (Production Editor, World Happiness Report)
A fascinating dive into behavioural economics, exploring how global metrics are shifting from pure GDP to tracking human well-being and happiness and the importance of doing this.
Each presentation was followed by a lively, student-led Q&A. Our Year 12s ran the event with absolute professionalism, managing the hosting duties, marketing, introducing the speakers, and facilitating sharp, thoughtful questions from the multi-school audience.
A huge congratulations to our Year 12 economists for putting together such an enriching event and fostering such a fantastic spirit of shared learning across the trust!
Student contributions and what they got out of it:
Tyne posed a challenging question about the most effective policies for reducing UK inequality, asking whether the greater issue is that the wealthiest have become too rich or that insufficient support is available for those at the lower end of the income distribution. The question sparked a lively debate on taxation, social mobility and economic fairness.
During a thought-provoking talk on World Happiness, Philippa challenged our economic exports on why youth wellbeing was declining in the UK whilst it is rising in other parts of the world, sparking an engaging discussion on the social and economic factors behind this trend
Ellie asked our economics expert a probing question about the long term impact of microloans and why these loans are more effective than grants in supporting sustainable economic development, prompting a thoughtful discussion on empowerment, entrepreneurship and financial independence.