Financial Education
Meadowfield Primary School
Financial Education
Vision statement
Situated in Halton Moor, Leeds, Meadowfield Primary School has a high need for financial education due to elevated levels of poor financial wellbeing across the estate that feeds into our school. Families are ill equipped to deal with the day-to-day burden of budgeting, saving and feeling in control of their finances and subsequently children are growing up in poverty and financial uncertainty. They regularly live in households where they live pay-check to pay-check or rely on payments from universal credit. Often, bills that aren’t as important are prioritised and children become used to living in this manner. The outlook for some can be bleak and we aim to provide a robust and aspirational curriculum that is fit for purpose and helps to improve outcomes for children and their families.
Children’s knowledge of how to keep money safe, bank accounts and lending of money. Children either had knowledge beyond their understanding or no understanding of financial concepts. E.g. Their knowledge and experience of a loan, would be mum borrowing money from aunty and then having to pay it back (sometimes more), rather than loans from the bank. The knowledge of loan sharks/unsafe loaning is limited, as is that of others in the family. Children talked well about emotions they has experienced in the home about money but were unsure of why these may have come about or their cause. Children are far less exposed to cash now as we have in the past due to the cashless society we are becoming. This makes it difficult for children to understand the concept and value of money. Children have skewed ideas around budgeting due to lack of planning in the home. E.g. parents/carers will spend £10 on the way to school on ‘breakfast’ from the shop rather than ensure the house has bread, cereal and milk. Unfortunately, this negatively educates our children about money.
To help kick start our financial education:
- We implemented a class ‘treasure box book’ per class for children to immerse themselves in and be used a tool for teaching and sparking conversation around money.
- Each class was provided with high quality ‘cash’ resources to ensure children have an awareness of this.
- We took part in a talk money week, with an assembly from ‘Brad’ and challenges to complete each day.
- Natwest ‘Money-sense’ workshop partners came in to work with our Yr 4 – 6 children. We did workshops in fraud and household budgeting.
Our vision is to ensure our financial education across school is robust. By implementing elements across the whole curriculum and whole school (as below) we can be successful in this.
Follow this link to read: Financial Education across the curriculum