My Rich Aunt

Philip Cooper, [read Philip's biography]

Summary

Bookings for this conference have now closed. Schools taking part are in various different parts of London.

A one-day conference for 6th form students in the style of a Master Class, to be held on 2 December. This will start with a videoconference at 10am, at which Philip will set the scene for the day. Students will then be given tasks to do, and they will alternate practical tasks with videoconferences at which they discuss what they have discovered with other schools involved. The day will end by 3.30pm. This is designed to be suitable for Year 12 students as well as Year 13.

How to Value Your Rich Elderly Aunt

Actuaries describe themselves as 'making financial sense of the future'. Actuarial Science has been likened to Financial Engineering. In this one-day conference we aim to show you how actuaries approach problem solving and allow you to experience solving an actuarial problem.

Your aunt has promised that you will receive £10,000 when she dies. You would like to sell this promise to someone else in return for the payment of a cash sum now - after all you need the money now much more than you will in time to come! What is the 'correct' price?

This is a long-term financial problem involving uncertainty, just the kind of problem for which Actuarial Science can provide a solution.

In setting out to find a solution we will discover that actuaries 'steal' many of their tools from other branches of mathematics and statistics, and then use them in their own special way. Many of these ideas will be familiar to you from your AS and A2 studies.

Depending on time, we will make use of

  • the relative frequency interpretation of probability (S1)
  • probabilities for mutually exclusive and for independent events (S1)
  • the differential coefficient as the slope of a tangent (P1)
  • sketching and interpreting graphs of functions (P1)
  • integration and determining the values of integrals using simple numerical methods (P2/P3)
  • compound interest (P1)
  • expected values of random variables (S1)
  • the sensitivity of models to changes in the modelling assumptions (M1/D1/S1)
Don't worry if you haven't come to some of these topics yet. There will be explanation for those who are new to aspects of the topic, and the chance to try things out for yourselves.

It will be helpful if those taking part

  • have access to Spreadsheet software e.g. Excel (spreadsheets will be provided to work with)
  • have some experience in using a Spreadsheet to calculate the values of functions and display these graphically

Talk

Project work

Additional material