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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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. 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Leadership

The bank at Bell Lane school

17 Jun 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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Special Needs

ECJ 4.1 Reports

11 Dec 2013

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      string(5742) "allabsences.Absence for all family holidays accounted for 8.3 per cent of all absences. Similar tothe previous year, 0.3 per cent of possible sessions were missed through authorisedfamily holidays and 0.2 per cent were missed through unauthorised family holidays.The rate of overall absence for those pupils who are eligible for and claiming freeschool meals (7.5 per cent) was 1.6 times higher than that for those pupils noteligible for and claiming free school meals (4.8 per cent).Pupils who were known to be eligible for and claiming free school meals were morelikely to be persistent absentees, 10.6 per cent of those pupils eligible and claimingcompared with 3.7 per cent for those pupils not eligible for and claiming freeschool meals.For pupils with special educational needs, the highest rate of overall absence wasamong those pupils at School Action Plus (7.7 per cent). This is 1.6 times that ofthose pupils with no identified special educational needs (4.8 per cent). The overallabsence rate for pupils with a statement of special educational needs was 7.5 percent and for pupils at School Action, it was 6.6 per cent.Of all pupils with a statement of special educational needs, 10.7 per cent werepersistent absentees, compared to 3.8 per cent of those pupils with no identifiedspecial educational need. Of pupils at School Action, 8.1 per cent were persistentabsentees and of pupils at School Action Plus, 11.2 per cent were persistentabsentees.Absence rates start to increase at secondary school age. The rate of overall absencefor pupils in national curriculum year group 11 (6.7 per cent) was 1.4 times the rateof overall absence for those pupils in national curriculum year group 7 (4.7 percent).Absence rates were highest for Traveller of Irish Heritage (20.7 per cent overallabsence) and Gypsy/Roma (14.9 per cent overall absence) ethnic groups. The rates■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■Pupil absencein schoolsin England,Autumn term2012 andSpring term2013www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdfwww.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249832/SFR39-2013.pdf13Vol 5.4School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comReportsLeadershipBriefingToo young tofailThis new report by Save the Children has found that more than a fifth of childrenin England have already fallen permanently behind by the age of seven. Thecharity says being behind at reading, writing and arithmetic at such a young agecan prejudice a child’s future earnings, health and, in economic terms, cost thecountry billions in lost revenue.The report shows that, through no fault of their own, poorer children as young as sevenare on course for poorer life chances.By the time they are seven, nearly 80 per cent of the difference in GCSE resultsbetween rich and poor children has already been determined. If the trends seenbetween 2007 and 2012 are continued, around half a million children risk not readingproperly by the age of seven by 2020, the report says.While progress has been made over the past decade in improving the achievementof the poorest children, we must recognise the scale of the remaining challenges.Seven-year-old children from poor families are still consistently more likely to fallbehind in critical skills such as reading.The impact on those children’s life chances is huge, trapping many in a cycle ofpoverty. Modelling carried out for this report also shows the enduring cost to thenation’s economy in wasted talent.Early-years provision, support for the parents of young children and a greater focuson primary education are vital for children’s learning and their future lives.Main Findings:Fewer than one in six children from low-income families who have fallen behindby the age of seven will go on to achieve five good GCSEs, including English andmaths.Better-off children who are behind are more likely to go on to achieve well – buteven they only have a one in four chance of getting five good GCSEs, includingEnglish and maths.If a child from a poor family is already behind with their reading at the age of seven,they have just over a one in five chance of going on to achieve a C in English atGCSE.Critical skills are of critical importance. With no solid base in reading, writing andmaths, young children risk failure before they have even started in life.Even continuing to make steady progress between now and 2020 could leaveapproximately 480,000 seven-year-olds, of whom 180,000 are low-income pupils,behind in reading.One in eight children who are on free school meals would be behind in reading in2020.As many as 520,000 children, of whom 220,000 are low-income pupils, would bebehind in reading by 2020.If instead all primary schools were performing as well as those in the top ten localauthorities, each year around 7,000 more children, or around 50,000 by 2020, wouldhave 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 allchildren, regardless of background, can:1. Start primary school ready to learn.2. Catch up quickly if they start"
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Leadership

SLT 5.4 Report Updates

20 Nov 2013

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