Skills you learn from Economics (Year 9)

Economics builds a mix of analytical and reasoning skills - working with data and evidence, thinking about cause and risk, applying models to real situations, building arguments, and communicating in numbers, words, and diagrams. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 9 students the skills they're already starting to build.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in 30 minutes as a teacher-led classroom activity.

This activity supports the following frameworks:

  • Gatsby Benchmark 4

This activity is suitable for Year 9 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Economics

This is one of three lesson plans for teachers introducing Economics to Year 9 students - whether through standalone Economics or Business lessons, enterprise activities, or careers programmes:

These lesson plans will help you show students how Economics connects to their future careers.

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. By this point students will have come across economic ideas through the news, careers lessons, or family conversations about prices, wages, and jobs - even if they haven't met Economics as a formal subject. Recognising the skills Economics builds helps students see it as more than another option for those who study it, and sets them up for choices in the spring.

Learning objectives

  • Students will understand that Economics builds a broad range of transferable skills.
  • Students will be able to name 2-3 skills they're already starting to build and give examples.

Before the lesson

  • You will need a computer connected to the internet and a classroom screen.
  • Open the What can you do with Economics? page and have it ready on the screen.
  • Review the Skills that Economics builds section and think of real-world examples for each one - drawn from news stories, careers activities, school trips, or familiar local employers.

During the lesson

1. What economic decisions do you see around you? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out examples of economic decisions in the world around them - changes in shop prices, wages and part-time jobs, interest rates and mortgages in the news, government spending decisions, why some products are cheaper online.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns: who's making the decision, who it affects, what trade-offs are involved.

2. Skills that Economics builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Economics? page on the classroom screen.
  • Review the contents of the page with students so that they understand what it covers.
  • Scroll to the Skills that Economics builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students how that skill might apply to one of the examples on the board.
    • Share your own examples if students are stuck - from news stories, careers lessons, or familiar local employers.

3. Making it personal (10 mins)

  • Ask students to pick 2-3 skills from the list they feel they're already starting to build - in school, at home, or in activities outside school.
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and give an example of when they used it.
  • Close by reminding students that these are valuable skills for work and life, not just for exams - and that Economics, where it's offered at GCSE or A-Level, is one way to develop them deliberately.

After the lesson

  • Share the What can you do with Economics? page with students and their parents/carers:
    • www.coffeewith.xyz/subjects/what-can-you-do-with-economics
  • Encourage parents/carers to explore the page with their child and to discuss the contents.
  • Use the School Tools / Activities feature to record the lesson activity:
    • Activity name: Year 09 - Skills you learn from Economics
    • Activity type: Linking curriculum learning to careers
  • Read the follow-on lesson plan: