Modelling Money Matters: Financial Literacy at Primary School

Financial literacy is an important part of being successful and well-educated. Daniel Ching and Julian Wright show how primary-aged pupils are learning valuable lessons that enhance the maths curriculum and give them the tools to excel later in life.

Worcesters Primary School is a three form entry school for children aged 3-11, and we currently have over 660 pupils on roll. As a school, we serve a culturally and linguistically diverse area, with over 35 per cent of pupils speaking English as an additional language and families demonstrating a variety of socioeconomic statuses. We believe that providing the best start in life for our pupils is paramount and we strive to promote this through our motto to ‘Be the best you can be!’.

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      string(419) "... proper use of public money”.Margaret Hodge, the committee’sLabour chair, said: “Over a quarter ofacademies could need extra financialor managerial help to maintainlong-term financial health. In thesecircumstances, simply issuing guidanceon basic standards of accountabilityand financial management is notenough.“A clear mandatory framework withstrong measures to deal with non ..."
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      string(5714) "� Vol 3.1 n www.teachingtimes.comPointsSchool Leadership TodayThe coalition government’sprogramme of educationreform has continued withthe publication of the newEducation Bill. It includes measures whichministers say will raise standards, tackleunderperformance and improve the way inwhich schools are held to account.In addition, the bill aims to strengthenteachers’ powers to deal with bad behaviour,giving schools the final say in expellingviolent pupils and seeking to protectteachers from pupils making false allegations.The new Education Bill –freedom or free-for-all?Education Secretary Michael Gove said:“We’re giving more powers for teachersto do their job properly – the ability toimpose better discipline – and freeingthem from bureaucracy. The best schoolswill be freed from inspections so Ofstedwill now concentrate on what matters– teaching and behaviour.“But we also need tough new powersto take action when things go wrong.In the worst schools there will be newintervention powers. Ofsted will focus onthe worst-performing schools where theyare needed most. It is unacceptablethat children should suffer in schoolsthat are not doing a good job.”Subject to the passage of the bill,the Secretary of State will now beable to direct a local authority toclose schools that are judged to be inspecial measures, require significantimprovement, or have failed tocomply with a warning notice.The government is also reformingthe school inspection system,cutting the 27 categories used byAn expansion of the academiesprogramme could risk placinga serious strain on the publicpurse, according to a newreport.The new Committee of Public Accountsreport showed that one in 20 academiesopened under the previous governmentran up a deficit last year – and more thana quarter needed help to secure theirlonger-term financial health.The coalition government has pledgedto rapidly increase the number ofacademies, and now wants to allow anyprimary or secondary school to convertinto an independent academy.Academy roll-out‘could be too costly’However, the report said their expansionposed “increased risks to value for moneyand proper use of public money”.Margaret Hodge, the committee’sLabour chair, said: “Over a quarter ofacademies could need extra financialor managerial help to maintainlong-term financial health. In thesecircumstances, simply issuing guidanceon basic standards of accountabilityand financial management is notenough.“A clear mandatory framework withstrong measures to deal with non-compliance is needed.”Christine Blower, general secretaryinspectors to just four. The bill will alsoexempt ‘outstanding’ schools from routineinspection.Labour’s shadow Education Secretary,Andy Burnham, accused the governmentof going backwards. “Michael Gove wantsto take our schools back to the 1950s,”he said. “It is an elitist, backward-lookingvision that won’t equip our children withthe knowledge and skills they need for themodern world. Labour is committed tothe highest academic standards, but Goveshows how out of touch he is when heprioritises Latin over ICT.“National guarantees for parents willbe replaced by a free-for-all. Gove will noteven guarantee a qualified teacher in everyclassroom – free schools will be able toemploy unqualified individuals to teach.”Chris Keates, general secretary ofthe NASUWT teachers’ union, said:“The bill has all the hallmarks of beingconceived by power junkies. The rhetoricsurrounding the bill is ‘localism’. Thereality is an unprecedented, massivecentralisation of power.”of the National Union of Teachers,said: “It is unacceptable that in someacademies there continues to be financialmismanagement of what we have toremember is public money. Similarly it isquite unbelievable that, under the previoussystem, some sponsors never paid in fullthe money they pledged to open upacademies.“It is nothing short of reckless for thegovernment to push ahead with theexpansion of the academies programmewhen this report shows the educationdepartment is already struggling withthe administration of the relatively smallnumber of academies at present.”�www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 3.1PointsSchool Leadership TodayNew research from CoventryUniversity shows using textmessage abbreviationscan benefit the literacydevelopment of primary school children.The Becta-funded study shows thatamong children who are new to usingmobile phones, use of text abbreviationswas related to the development of literacyskills.The research involved 114 school pupilsaged nine and ten who had not owneda mobile phone previously. Half of thechildren were given basic mobile phonesto use for texting over weekends andschool holidays over a 10-week period,while the other half formed a controlgroup.Reading, spelling and phonologicalawareness tests were taken before andafter the intervention, and the children’sTexting ‘can boostliteracy’ – reportreading and spelling was monitoredweek on week.The findings showed that whilethere were no significant differencesin literacy skill developmentbetween the intervention andcontrol groups, the interventiongroup’s use of texting abbreviationswas positively linked to gains inliterary skills, and was particularlybeneficial for spelling ability.The researchers believe that thisis mainly attributable to the wayin which the abbreviations help todevelop the children’s phonological skills.Lead researcher Clare Wood said: “Theresults of this study suggest that simplygiving children access to mobile phonesin the limited way we did in this studydoes"
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Leadership

SLT 3.1 News

24 Mar 2011

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Leadership Briefing Issue 4.12 (48)"
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      string(4172) "ResourceWHAT MONEY MEANSOriginal DocumentWhat Money Means. This survey, carried out by YouGov on behalf of the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg), has found that four out of five parents felt that children aged 9 to 10 should learn about financial matters in primary school and only one in ten could remember having received tuition on personal finance whilst at school themselves. It also found that children are strongly feeling the impact of the recession – over a third hear about it more than once a week and a quarter are reducing their own spending.KeywordsPersonal finance, primary school, tuition, recession, spending habitsSummaryThis survey, carried out by YouGov on behalf of the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg), has found that four out of five parents felt that children aged 9 to 10 should learn about financial matters in primary school and only one in ten could remember having received tuition on personal finance whilst at school themselves. It also found that children are strongly feeling the impact of the recession – over a third hear about it more than once a week and a quarter are reducing their own spending.The survey, which covered 1,000 children aged 9-10 and their parents was commissioned by HSBC and the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) as part of the What Money Means programme to expand financial education in primary schools.Main Findings:· Four out of five parents felt that children aged 9 to 10 should learn about financial matters in school and only one in ten could remember having received tuition on personal finance whilst at school themselves. · Whilst most parents had discussed money issues with their children, only one in ten had done so in-depth, but there was evidence of this changing over time with younger parents far more likely to have done so.· Mothers were more likely than fathers to have discussed financial issues with their children and they also felt slightly more confident in doing so. Common topics were: savings, pocket money and the ‘value’ and importance of money. · For around a third of families, the recession had led to more discussion with children about money. This was not surprising given that over half had specifically cut back on spending and taken steps to reduce their bills during the recession.· Over a third had heard adults saying they cannot buy something because of the recession once a week or more often and, as a result of the recession, a quarter had either reduced their spending on their own initiative or after prompting by their parents. · Their key targets for cutting public spending were the Olympics, leisure facilities and the Armed Forces, but children were protective of hospitals and services for the elderly. · When given a list of financial products, children felt that their knowledge of credit cards was the strongest. A minority of others felt than mortgages and insurance were the most understandable. One in ten did not know about any of the five concepts presented. · Asked to think about items that are necessary, computers and books were the most popular answers. Trips out, clothes and i-Pods were thought of as ‘nice to have.’ · The children tended to understand that credit cards, loans and mortgages had a role in large purchases, but it was perhaps surprising that many also associated credit cards with paying for items such as a mobile phone, trainers or DVDs. · There was an inclination towards saving rather than borrowing: only one in ten felt that borrowing was better when wanting to buy something.· Very few wouldn’t know what to do if given £20. Saving some of it was the most popular option for over half, but just slightly fewer would spend some of it on entertainment and sweets.  ActionNotesAuthorRaspal Chima, Imaginative MindsDate CreatedApril 2010Enquiries to:raspal.chima@yahoo.co.uk (Authoring Unit)Month / YearPage 1 of 1©Birmingham City Council"
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Leadership

What Money Means

8 Apr 2010

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      string(324) "54 Vol 1.2 n www.teachingtimes.comEvery Child Matters Financial AwarenessSchool Leadership TodayB ell Lane Combined School is situated in Little Chalfont, a leafy area in Buckinghamshire. It is a single form entry school with an age range of 3 to 11 and 173 pupils on roll. Just under ..."
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      string(5851) "54 Vol 1.2 n www.teachingtimes.comEvery Child Matters Financial AwarenessSchool Leadership TodayB ell Lane Combined School is situated in Little Chalfont, a leafy area in Buckinghamshire. It is a single form entry school with an age range of 3 to 11 and 173 pupils on roll. Just under halfare on the SEN register, with 30 statements of special educational needs. The local catchment includes areas of poverty and many pupils come from single parent families. The school believes in a holistic approach to learning, and understands the importance of supporting pupils’ academic skills alongside life skills.In 2005 the school was invited to take part in a pilot scheme by the Personal Finance Education Group (PFEG). This is an independent charity organisation, supporting children’s financial capability. They had created a handbook for primary schools which Bell Lane School was encouraged to try out and provide feedback on. It was felt that the pupils at Bell Lane would greatly benefit from support in learning about this life skill which linked very closely to the Every Child Matters outcome ‘Achieve economic well-being’.After taking part in the pilot, we used the audit tool from the handbook to find out what the pupils knew about financial capability. The results were worrying, although not particularly surprising! Most children had little or no understanding of any aspect of financial capability. This was true of all children and not specific to children from a particular background. I was then given the opportunity to teach financial capability to classes 3 to 6 for 1 hour a week.When planning my lessons, I was keen to create projects rather than individual lessons. These projects would enable lessons to cross into different curriculum areas as well as being more interesting for the children. With this in mind, I decided to start a school bank with children in Year 6. I began the project in September 2005 and only had two main aims in mind: that the children would run the bank entirely on their own (therefore not relying on any particular staff member), and that the bank would continue to run year after year.Ownership Over the autumn term of 2005, I used my onehour per week with Year 6 to practise their mental calculations, so preparing themfor handling money. The children were to make their own action plan as it was important that the pupils had ownership of the project. Pupils came up with ideas and made all the decisions; my role was simply to guide them.The lessons often consisted of preparing resources (the children haddecided to cover the account books by hand), while discussing such topics aswhy we should have a school bank and how it would benefit the children. Thesediscussions were possibly the most rewardingThe bank at Bell Lane schoolThe mighty high street banks may be struggling to survive – but the one run by primary school children in Buckinghamshire goes from strength to strength. Caroline Masters tells the story55www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 1.2Every Child MattersFinancial Awarenesspart of the whole project as I listened to children reasoning and justifying their ideas and comments to each other, and really taking the whole project seriously.By the spring term in 2006 the pupils had organised themselves into teams: a manager and deputy manager who would oversee the running of the bank, an accounting team who would keep track of the money and records, and an advertising team who would market the bank to the rest of the school and help raise money for resources. Pupils from the advertising team designed the bank’s logo and handmade the account books. Accountants helped design a spreadsheet to record transactions and prepared the ledger. All pupils were involved in some aspect of preparing the school bank.To raise money for resources such as calculators, pens and ledger pads, the pupils held a fundraising day at school. Our local secondary school, the Amersham School, has gained business enterprise status, and we were therefore lucky enough to get support from them both financially (they supplied the bank with a laptop) and logistically, as one of their staff members had previously been a bank manager. She was able to come in and meet with the bank’s management team, question them on what they were doing, and answer questions and give advice.The bank opened officially after half term in February 2006. The Year 6 children had made posters and informed the other children in an assembly about the bank, and the importance of saving. The bank was to be a very simple savings bank where pupils could open an account, be given a unique account number, deposit their money and save towards something specific.The bank opened once a week on a Friday during playtime. Records of transactions were kept on the laptop and on the ledger and were balanced regularly. They were also written in the account books so the customer would have their own record of transactions relating to their account. Once the bank was open, the hour-long lesson was used to review how the bank was doing, ensure that the laptop and ledger records matched and write reports to the headteacher and other investors.By the end of that academic year there were more than 30 children and two staff members with school bank accounts. News travelled about the bank, and the children were invited to do a presentation at a national headteachers’ conference at Villa Park, the home of Aston Villa Football Club in Birmingham. Only two children were able to go, so we held auditions and short interviews, asking the children about the bank"
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Leadership

The bank at Bell Lane school

20 May 2009

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      string(5906) "have attained good levels of literacy by the end of primary school.Recommendations:All political parties to sign up to a 2020 ambition, which would ensure that all children, regardless of background, can:1. Start primary school ready to learn.2. Catch up quickly if they start school already behind, so that no child is left behind at age seven.3. Leave primary school having had a good, fulfilling education, including being confident readers.All political parties to develop proposals for their 2015 manifestos that would make progress towards these goals, focusingparticularly on the following critical areas:1. protecting family incomes from the squeeze on living standards, so parents can provide the support their children need2. continuing to invest in and improve preschool services and parenting support3. starting early, ensuring no child falls behind in our primary schools.The government to make progress towards these goals, focusing particularly on the following critical areas:1. Publish an annual report on progress in creating fair chances for all young children.2. As an immediate priority, focus additions to the Pupil Premium on five to seven-year-olds – a new ‘fair chances premium’ atthe age that matters most.3. In the long term, front-load spending in primary school – in particular, the early years of primary school. Building on thesuccessful introduction of the Pupil Premium, aiming to boost the Pupil Premium to £3,000–£4,000 in primary school wouldbe one option.nnnnnnnnnnwww.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/Too_Young_to_Fail_0.pdf10Vol 4.1 n www.teachingtimes.comDevelopments/reportsEvery Child JournalParental views on eDucationThis YouGov attitudinal survey was commissioned by London Councils of London parents’ attitudes to the new educational system.It reveals that a majority of parents (62 per cent) with children at a free school support councils having a role in dealing withunderperforming free schools. This rises to 77 per cent of parents with children in a local authority maintained school who think localauthorities should have powers of influence over maintained schools.Main Findings:Parents rank London as the top performing education region by the majority (77 per cent) followed by the South East (65 per cent)and South West (42 per cent). At the other end of the spectrum, the North East hits the bottom of the scale (46 per cent) followed bythe North West (39 per cent) and jointly London and Yorkshire & Humber at 35 per cent.The majority of parents (73 per cent) correctly identify that Local Authorities have the power to influence or intervene withmaintained schools if they are underperforming.Those who thought Local Authorities had power over failing schools were then asked which, if any powers they felt they have:Six in ten identified sending in inspectorsJust over half (55 per cent) identified placing the school under special measuresHalf (49 per cent) identified issuing warning notices39 per cent identified restructuring schools36 per cent identified shutting the school down.Those who live in the bottom five boroughs are significantly more likely to state Local Authorities should have powers overAcademies and Free schools than those residing in the ‘other’ London boroughs outside of the top or bottom five performers(68 per cent and 69 per cent in the bottom five boroughs, compared with 59 per cent and 59 per cent respectively in the ‘otherboroughs’)The majority of parents in London (78 per cent) found the process of applying to primary or secondary school very/fairly easy, whileone in five found it fairly/very difficult. Parents with a child in a religious school are significantly more likely to find the processdifficult compared with those parents who have a child at an Academy or Maintained school (25 per cent compared with 18 per centand 17 per cent respectively).Responses to the question about whether or not a school should have its own governing body or one governing body managingmore than one school remained broadly the same after parents were given further information on school governance – the majorityof London parents (76 per cent) believe that each school should have its own governing body, 15 per cent believe one governingbody should manage more than one school and one in ten (9 per cent) don’t know.Half of parents in London (53 per cent) when asked at the end of the survey thought that the education system is under morecentral government control than they did previously. A further 29 per cent thought the system was under more local control and 19per cent did not know.nnnnnnnnnnnnthe imPortance of rank PositionChildren who are top of the class in primary school are likely to do better in exams later on because they are more confident, accordingto this research by the Centre for Economic Performance, which examined how local rank affects later outcomes. It concludes that rankposition within primary school has significant effects on later achievement, conditional on end-of-primary national test scores.With specific regards to education, the importance of rank leads to a natural question for a parent deciding on where to send theirchild. Parents will naturally ask themselves whether they should send their children to a ‘better’ or ‘worse’ school where he or she will benearer the top of the class.These findings have general implications for productivity in the classroom for transparency and productivity. 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        string(8) "literacy"
        [2]=>
        string(7) "primary"
        [3]=>
        string(6) "school"
      }
    }
    ["categories"]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      array(3) {
        ["value"]=>
        string(13) "Special Needs"
        ["matchLevel"]=>
        string(4) "none"
        ["matchedWords"]=>
        array(0) {
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Special Needs

ECJ 4.1 Reports

4 Dec 2013