We’ve noticed a definite improvement in children’s understanding of money. They are now more articulate and they have a better understanding of what money is.
Cat Mellersh, Teacher at Meadowside Primary School
One of the most exciting announcements in the Curriculum Review was the addition of Financial Literacy to the Primary Citizenship curriculum. This means that children will begin learning about how to spend and save, how to budget, how to judge value and make informed choices, how to recognise advertising and how to manage the varied emotions associated with money. Placing the subject in Citizenship rather than maths is important too, acknowledging that there is far more than adding and subtracting going on when children learn to manage money. Our pilot has demonstrated that collaboration between schools and parents can be really powerful in delivering relevant and meaningful financial education.
Why add it to the Primary curriculum?
Do young children really need to learn about money when they may be a decade away from earning their own? Research suggests that they do. The habits of mind that influence financial behaviour are formed as early as 7 years old and the OECD found that one of the best predictors of financial wellbeing was the age at which people start learning about money. It is also a question of equity; families with more resources have more conversations about money, and this is reflected in their children’s knowledge. A fifteen-year-old from a low-income family has a similar financial understanding to an eleven-year-old from a more privileged background and differences are particularly stark at the end of primary school.
Children are also using money throughout their primary school years. More young people than ever are using a debit card, purchasing items online, or using in-game currencies. Half of 11 year olds receive their pocket money on a card and over half of children and young people are buying things online without always having adult supervision. Gambling is all too easily accessible through a smartphone and online scams are ubiquitous. To quote the Centre for Social Justice:
“The TikTok generation faces altogether different challenges than those armed with a cheque book in years gone by”
Our Money Skills pilot
We developed our Money Skills programme to meet these challenges. We knew parents were motivated to get involved – more than 4000 of our parents responded to a survey. 91% of these parents felt it was important for their children to learn about money and finances before the age of 11 and 78% welcomed activities to support them with this. Last year we piloted Money Skills – asking 500 of our families, in 9 schools, with children aged 4-11 to try the topics and activities and let us know what they thought. We have just finished our evaluation – we’ve visited schools and spoken to school leaders, teachers, parents and children. We’ve read the comments on the activities and crunched the numbers from our platform and are now ready to share what we have learnt about engaging parents in their children’s financial education.
What we found
The programme as a whole received very positive feedback. The activities were viewed as enjoyable and useful by families and the comments on activities were overwhelmingly positive; 60% included the words ‘loved’, ‘enjoyed’, ‘fun’ or ‘interesting. There was also strong evidence that the activities:
- prompted conversations between parents and children.
- prompted family connection, including with extended family
- prompted new experiences such as saving up or paying for items independently in shops.
- had the potential to start new habits such as giving pocket money, discussing budgets or setting savings goals.
- gave parents insight into what their children do and don’t know about money.
She now helps with online shopping, we were talking about the value of money and how much things cost. Before she wouldn’t have even considered that.
Family comment
We know that parents are the key influencers of children’s habits and attitudes and that increasing these conversations, experiences and habits is likely to increase children’s financial knowledge and confidence. Parents also gained insights into what their children did and didn’t know about money and welcomed ideas for relevant conversation topics and experiences for different ages.
Working well in schools
School leaders told us that the programme worked well in schools and they found the assemblies useful to launch each half term’s topic. The schools which reported the highest engagement coordinated the scheduling of topics across the school, built excitement by giving children a ‘sneaky peak’ before the parents and celebrated what families did together by looking at the uploaded photographs in classes or assemblies. School leaders felt the activities were valuable, offered experiences beyond the classroom that schools could not offer and did this with minimal demands on teaching time.
One of the main highlights has been seeing the photographs of children actually going out and shopping with real money, using notes and coins which they don’t necessarily see all that often. It’s been the best thing because it brings it to life for them.
Cat Mellersh, Teacher
What's next?
With the generous support of the Aberdeen Charitable Foundation, we are excited to offer the Money Skills programme to all of our schools, free of charge. Already, the photos and comments are rolling in and it’s brilliant to see so many families learning about money and having the conversations that we know build long term financial wellbeing.
Our pilot demonstrates that this is a perfect area for collaboration between families and schools – schools contribute their knowledge of the curriculum and relevant activities for each age group, parents can add their knowledge of their child, the opportunities they have in different situations and make these activities relevant to their families lives.
A stamp of approval
We’re pleased to announce that our Money Skills programme has been awarded the Young Enterprise Quality Mark for a financial education resource. This gives teachers confidence that our Money Skills activities are of the highest educational value, contain accurate and up-to-date information and are engaging and relevant for children.
Money Skills in action: Read how Meadowside Primary are making the most of our programme:
