MONEY smart students at Stratford School are counting the cost to success.
The sixth form Economics team won the regional heat of the Target 2.0 Bank of England ‘Interest Rate Challenge’ held at Birmingham University.
The team of Kieran Mallinson, Julia Kubacka, Marcie Jagodzinska and Jamie Thomas had to prepare and present a 15-minute presentation on what they would do with monetary policy from the perspective of being the Monetary Policy Committee.
This meant the team had to assess the current economic conditions and the outlook for inflation and then set the interest rate to meet the Government’s inflation target of two per cent.
The team then presented their analysis and monetary policy decision to a panel of three judges from the Bank of England.
If the preparation and presentations were not challenging enough, the students then had to face a series of in-depth questions from the Bank of England judging panel.
Their subject teacher Jane Lewis said: “This was the first time we have entered a team for an event of this nature and the students certainly took it extremely seriously and prepared very well which was reflected by their well-earned win.”
Team member Marcie said “This was a scary but valuable experience which taught us skills which will be useful in the future.”
The team now go on to the area championships in the new year.
