Teaching yourself GCSE economics

[RedskyLastNight]

Can anyone suggest any resources for teaching yourself GCSE economics? DS is doing really badly (think, currently working at a Level 1) and doesn't get on with or understand his teacher (so asking for more help via school is no good). We'd consider a tutor but can't find an appropriate local one. The only revision guide for his exam board is not considered to be very good.

The only solution we currently have is for me to teach myself the information and go through it with DS in bite size chunks (I'm also hoping he's learnt more than he thinks, so just the discipline and sitting down and working through it systematically will help).

Any ideas to get me started very welcome!

Isn't there an actual text book?

My kids don't do economics but tell me that there are teachers on YouTube who post lessons in the subjects that they specialize in. I would search for the topics that you are looking for and have a watch until he finds one he likes .

I'd forgotten the concept of text books - good point - will check!

Sadly, as the new 9-1 GCSE is so new for economics there is nothing specific for his exam board (AQA) on youtube . I can find plenty of resources for economics in general but am wary of using them in case I'm covering totally the wrong content. That seems to be the case for the other "go to" revision sites I usually use as well. I have printed out the spec; I suspect I may just have to work through each topic individually in turn and cross reference I/we've covered all the points.

If he is struggling so much, should he drop the subject? This could be seriously hard work from now on with no professional help. Is it worth it?

I'd love him to drop it (so would he) but the school have thus far said this is not an option. Will try again at parents' evening (couple of weeks' time) though!

We do have an underlying issue that he thinks that things that are hard are not worth bothering with, so this isn't the only subject where there are "issues" - just the one with the worst issues! So I guess there is an argument for he needs to persevere ...

I would also consider dropping economics gcse. I'd focus on Maths, English and the Sciences!

I've got an Economics degree but a long time since I did GCSE Economics. Is he first year of GCSEs or second? If first can he swap subjects - business studies has overlap.

We certainly had a textbook, even at A level was mainly via textbook so worth asking what one. I would start with a GCSE Economics book. Bank of England has an education section - not as good as it used to be though:

www.bankofengland.co.uk/education and a knowledge bank:

www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank

A quick search revealed this information posted by another secondary school.

www.toothillschool.co.uk/page.php?d=bus&p=revappbus

They give some additional resources for their students plus links to revision materials and hints for answering exam questions.

Thanks ksb76 I have made liberal use of Google already!! I was hoping that someone might have some personal experience of using different materials and which ones were better, but appreciate that there aren't too many students doing/have done the new GCSE already.

Panda thanks for the info about the BofE site - I'll take a look.

Sorry - my DS is doing OCR Economics so can't give you board specific feedback.

This has examples in and a question paper:

www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/economics/gcse/economics-8136/assessment-resources?f.Sub-category%7CF=Sample+papers+and+mark+schemes

It's all fairly standard economics and any good economics textbook aimed at GCSE should cover this. Do avoid any resources aimed at Business Studies - economics is much more theoretical and business studies more practical. A good starting point for economics is to learn the terminology - lots of it though would go through topic by topic.

Have you tried an idiots guide to economics?

There is also the Scheme of Work (with some useful links) on the Teaching Resources page on the aqa website:
filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/economics/AQA-8136-SOW.DOCX