Wow, a budget on a Wednesday has thrown me!
This one has quite a lot to digest, including some pretty nuanced ideas to teach.
I've used the following reports/analysis. It's potentially a but left-leaning, but I wanted to use free but reliable news sources.
Executive summary of the actual budget statement is about 6 pages, so is probably manageable
BBC have their classic 'Key points at a glance' and 'How will it affect you' articles
The Guardian also have a Key Points summary with a little bit of commentary
Yahoo! Finance have some graphs which are pretty easy to interpret
IFS' Paul Johnson has an explanation video and some short written commentary. They also have some graphs.
For a challenge, the executive summary of the OBR's Economic and Fiscal Outlook is 14 pages, but it's not too hard to skim for information
I've made a bunch of activities to pick and choose from:
Tax research
This asks students to explain how some key taxes work.
No A-Level knowledge needed.
Useful terms match up
Covers concepts from GSP to Fiscal Drag
Can infer almost all of is without A-Level knowledge
Impact Assessment
Inferring how the policies will affect different groups in society
Policy Analysis
Looking at the intended outcomes of specific policies
Chart Analysis
Noting what the chart tells us about the changes made (or not made) in the Budget
Good for getting a feel for scale and scope of changes
No A-Level knowledge needed
Macro Impact
Asking the broader question of how macro-objectives might be affected
Y1 Macro knowledge needed
Quotation hunt
Finding quotations from the Executive Summary to match claims
Good for practising application
No A-Level knowledge needed as long as they have done the tax research and useful terms match up
MCQs
Basic comprehension
No A-Level knowledge needed
There is also a Microsoft Forms verison here
They are all reasonably self-contained and self-explanatory, so can be set for cover or homework.
If it helps, my plan for Y13 is:
Useful Terms Match Up activity for starter
Crowdsource Tax Research
Go over some background context - I originally considered going through this article from Economics Observatory on the UK's Economic Inheritance and filling in the worksheet at the bottom of the page before going on to the Budget stuff, but instead I've decided to go with this article which I think will be a bit quicker, we'll probably just talk through the charts. I
I'll then print the Guardian article at 80% scale so we can annotate it, adding in graphs/explanations/comments - lots and lots of modelled 'reading like an Economist'
Will play it by ear a little but will probably set Chart Analysis and Macro Impact for homework
My 12s haven't done any Macro yet, so I'll probably just give them the Tax Research, Match up and MCQs as homework, have a quick discussion and keep the others in my back pocket for cover work over the next few weeks if needed.