Over the exeat weekend, 20 Shiplake economics pupils spent four days in Frankfurt to enhance their understanding of economics and see the classroom come to life in Europe’s financial hub. Year 13 pupil and economics scholar, Monty Wallace, describes his experience:
Upon arriving in Frankfurt, we quickly got onto a coach towards the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. There, we received a talk about the university and received an interesting lecture on inflation across Europe, focusing especially on the UK and Germany. We saw how the war in Ukraine has caused such huge knock-on effects across the whole of Europe. After getting to the hotel, many people set back off into town to go ice-skating.
In the morning of the next day, we set off for a tour of the BASF plant. BASF is the largest chemical producer in the world. We receive an amazing bus tour, seeing how all the chemicals are produced and seeing all the ways they try to maximise efficiency and sustainability. After that, we were set loose into Frankfurt’s town centre to enjoy the atmosphere, explore and eat some authentic German food. Next, it was time for some bowling, and I discovered that I am the world’s worst bowler!
The following day, we set off to visit Deutsche Bank’s Money Museum. There were many interesting displays of money; my favourite being, as a history student, the 1923 Germany hyperinflation one. Swiftly after leaving, we had a walking tour around Frankfurt, showing us all the relevant economics-related places. In the evening, we did an escape room, with my team completing the room in the quickest time ever recorded.
We rose in the morning of the final day and hurried onto the coach and arrived at the ECB (European Central Bank). We got a tour as well as a detailed talk about how the bank used quantitative easing and interest rates to achieve price stability as well as the target inflation rate of 2%. This is important now more than ever due to the incredibly high interest rates across Europe. Before we knew it, we were on the coach back to the airport to go home. Overall, it was an incredibly interesting trip, with a good mix of economics and fun (as economics is always fun!).
