JFF Submission: Education committee inquiry december 2023

Education Committee inquiry into strengthening financial education

Response from the Just Finance Foundation

December 2023

About the Just Finance Foundation

The Just Finance Foundation (JFF) is a national charity working with schools, families, and changemakers to build financially resilient communities where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive. Our mission is to equip the people who families trust with the confidence, knowledge, and inspiration to educate the next generation and build financially capable communities. Since 2017, JFF has supported over 122,000 children in 456 schools across the UK.

JFF currently has a financial literacy programmed called LifeSavers embedded in primary schools across the UK. LifeSavers is an innovative, values-based financial literacy programme that gives children the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to manage their money wisely. LifeSavers has been awarded the Financial Education Quality Mark and includes a range of age-appropriate resources, including:

• Milo’s Money: an engaging storybook and set of teaching resources that prime Early Years and Key Stage 1 for future financial literacy by introducing basic money concepts. It aims to level out student knowledge, skills, and attitudes with money and coins ahead of reaching Key Stage 2.

• 5 Big Questions: a values-based set of teaching resources aimed at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, helping teachers and pupils to explore where money comes from, how money makes us feel, what we can use money for, how money can help other people, and how we can look after our money. The 5 Big Questions resources are designed to be delivered flexibly to suit the requirements of individual schools and may be used alongside other financial education resources.

• Savings Clubs: Our Savings Clubs are currently a collaboration with schools and local credit unions who are keen to help us develop community links and strengthen the financial status of those who live in their area. The aim is to support primary schools to give children the practical experience of saving and making decisions about money.

 About this submission

This submission represents the views of the Just Finance Foundation not any one individual. We would welcome further conversations with the Education Committee on any element of the response.

Question 1

• What should we be teaching young people about money?

• What should financial education include and are there any aspects missing from the current provision?

Just Finance Foundation’s (JFF) work with 456 primary schools across the UK has demonstrated that teaching children about values around money is just as important as skill and knowledge in shaping future financial behaviour. In our recent participating schools survey, 99% of teachers agreed that financial education is important and that our resources have supported them to provide students with key life skills.

According to the Financial Conduct Authority’s recent Financial Lives Survey, 12.9 million UK adults had low financial resilience (as at May 2022), meaning they experienced financial difficulty because they have missed paying domestic bills or credit commitments, or they could quickly find themselves in difficulty because they are overburdened by financial commitments or have limited savings.

JFF is concerned that current approaches to financial education focus too heavily on numeracy skills, neglecting the decision-making and critical thinking that is required to deal with money in the real world. Whilst building numeracy skills is important, children need to develop practical applications of money knowledge, so they can build confidence in making financial decisions as adults.

JFF’s approach does not teach children what to do with money, but how to make informed decisions that best meet their individual needs, goals and values. Working with children to understand the options available and encouraging them to connect their decisions with consequences (both positive and negative) means they can adjust when the unexpected occurs.

Qualitative evidence: Primary-age teacher insight, Manchester
“I think [children should learn about] the basics of opening a bank account and the different types of accounts, keeping finances safe from fraud, personal relationships and money (e.g. financial abuse), clear understanding of credit, different types of mortgages, loans for university. Lots of students come to college and they have no clue about how uni is financed - some are frightened and won't go to uni because they are scared of borrowing that much money....often, once explained, they do apply but I'm always surprised that this has not been covered when schools are supposed to encourage high aspirations.”

Qualitative evidence: Head Teacher, Westbury on Trym

“[Children should be taught] strong money management, thinking of others not just themselves, budgeting and planning.”

Qualitative evidence: Head of Department, Manchester

“Children should be taught about money in meaningful context according to their age. Relevance to the real world is vital and currently missing.”

There are some clear steps that can be taken to address these gaps in current financial education provision:

• Provide primary-age children (from KS1) with opportunities at school to physically play with coins and see how they relate to the prices of objects. In an increasingly cashless society, children rarely witness a financial transaction where physical money is exchanged. Goods arrive at home seemingly out of nowhere, money is saved in online accounts, and toys are purchased by tapping a card. For children to understand the value of money in spending and saving, they need to first relate to the physical handling and exchange of coins. To meet these needs, JFF has developed Milo’s Money, an interactive storybook for Early Years and Key Stage 1 which follows a young dinosaur who earns some money doing chores and needs to make decisions about how to spend or save it. In addition, we support in-school Savings Clubs which give children practical experience handling coins and saving money each week.

• Ensure financial education lessons link money to decision-making. Financial education should aim to develop a child’s ability to make informed decisions about money. As adults, we are increasingly required to review different options for our money and make an informed decision about how to use and protect it. Financial education in the primary years should start developing these critical thinking and decision-making skills.

• Expand the curriculum to focus on values alongside knowledge and equip teachers to explore how we think and feel about money. Teaching should establish values associated with money, so that children understand concepts of wisdom, generosity, thankfulness and justice. Exploring how we think and feel about money from a young age helps build healthy relationships with money, builds confidence, and enables critical thinking to develop. Exploration of key concepts from the ‘Living In The Wider World’ PSHE Association objectives should be further developed with opportunities for children to engage in conversations about money.

• Teach children about financial risk. Inclusion of financial risk within the curriculum is vital as pre-emptive education. Children are increasingly open to financial risk from an early age (gambling is clearly inherent within gaming). Children should be exposed to ideas around positive and negative risk and this teaching should link to protecting our money through habits like saving.

• Facilitate practical money activities in primary schools such as savings clubs. Children need to see their money growing over time and develop the habits of regular saving. Embedding this early offers a greater chance of it being continued in adult life.

Question 2

• Where should financial education sit within the National Curriculum between the ages of 11 and 16? To what extent does its current position within the curriculum limit the amount of delivery time it receives?

• Should financial education form part of a core subject, such as mathematics?

Starting financial education at age 11 is too late. Research from the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) demonstrates that habits and attitudes towards money begin to develop as early as ages 3 to 7.

Despite no statutory requirements in England to deliver financial education, the secondary curriculum assumes that all pupils have the same knowledge, skills and exposure to money lessons. The secondary curriculum does not assume everyone has the same level of exposure to physics or chemistry, and it should not make assumptions about levels of financial education. With the majority of children in England attending a traditional school, a statutory, curriculum-based, and Ofsted inspected offering through schools remains the best opportunity to reach the most children without discrimination. State schools exist to ensure that every child has equal access to a standardised education and that no child’s opportunity to learn is disadvantaged as a circumstance of birth. The teaching of financial literacy as standard must be accepted as a necessary part of this baseline.

While JFF agrees that continuing financial education in secondary school is important, the fact is that many children are entering young adult life without the essential learning foundations needed to build on their knowledge because financial education is not taught consistently in primary school.

JFF agrees that embedding financial education in core subjects is essential for primary-aged children and above. There are important links with mathematics, but this is not the only core subject where financial education can be delivered. Working directly with teachers, we have found cross-curricular resources are best, allowing teachers the flexibility to adapt the lessons in different core subjects to meet the needs of their pupils, and reflecting the way that money permeates many aspects of life. JFF’s qualitative evidence from teachers and educators demonstrates the desire for this flexibility across children’s learning experiences:

Qualitative evidence: Head of Department, Manchester
“Financial education should be embedded across the curriculum as appropriate but most essentially within maths as a core skill.”

Qualitative evidence: Head of Life Skills, Rochester

“PSHE and within maths.  Skills of both teachers would be beneficial.”

Qualitative evidence: Head of Department Lead, Manchester

“Many students have an adverse experience with maths. Finance is a life skill and can also have an adverse impact on lives, so I strongly believe it should sit within personal development and not maths.”

Examples of good curriculum direction can be found in the devolved nations recent curriculum innovations. Both the Curriculum for Wales and Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence place money at the heart of learning about numbers – not just as a context for teaching about calculation. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence goes further and includes financial risk and decision making from an early age.

JFF supports schools to introduce financial education in a range of core subjects to reinforce learning, develop critical thinking, and expose children to how money can influence all aspects of life. JFF’s LifeSavers resources include cross-curricular activities for Maths, PSHE, English and Drama, responding to teacher requests to make financial education accessible to more children with different learning styles and abilities.

This cross-curricular approach requires coordination by school leadership to ensure that financial education is not overlooked or lost amongst core subject planning. Our participating schools often delegate this to the PSHE lead or the overall curriculum lead. We also encourage the appointment of a LifeSavers Champion to oversee delivery. The financial education lead ensures the provision is clear across different year groups and subjects.

For example, JFF is currently working with a primary school where the curriculum lead is responsible for financial education provision and reinforcing the message that financial education is a necessary inclusion in lesson planning across the school. Year groups are expected to include this in their Talk Money Week unit using JFF LifeSavers resources. All subject leads must show how financial considerations impacted on their subject. For example, the Art subject overview includes an explicit link to financial education by teaching children about being careful with art resources and avoiding waste. This helps to build children’s understanding about the cost of resources and why being careful with them is important.

Question 3

• What steps should be taken to support teachers and schools in their delivery of financial education?

Primary school teachers report the following barriers to delivering financial education:

• Increased demands on their time due to increased expectations around planning and preparation, marking and feedback, evaluation and assessment, and home school links.

• Lack of funding, particularly if teachers aren’t supported to demonstrate value of financial education to the school (not being a mandatory part of the curriculum or Ofsted guidelines).

• Due to inadequate training and suitable resources, teachers can lack confidence to teach and talk about money in the classroom.

Based on JFF’s experience working directly with primary school teachers, the following steps should be taken to support their delivery of financial education:

• Mandate financial literacy as statutory in the national primary school curriculum in England and include PSHE provision in the Ofsted guidelines. Action this in consultation with schools, exploring how financial education can complement existing curriculum rather than creating additional work.

• Ensure the national curriculum focuses on ‘real-life’ issues around money.

• Focus on training teachers and offer high quality CPD to build teacher confidence.

• Provide strong, adaptable resources for schools so that teachers can tailor lessons to the needs of their students and their own teaching style, creating maximum impact.

• Provide sufficient funding to deliver free financial education resources, including support and CPD training for teachers.

• Provide tailored or adaptable resources to ensure children with additional social, emotional, behavioural, and mental health needs are not excluded.

JFF demonstrates that equipping teachers with training and resources to deliver money lessons is a scale-able and sustainable model for financial education provision. Financial education is a vital learning area for all children, therefore, it is critical that this education is not irregular and tokenistic. In a recent survey of our participating schools:

• 90% of teachers reported feeling confident about delivering financial education after using our resources.

• 98% of teachers reported that their pupils benefited from the resources.

JFF is invested in a teacher training model because it has proven easier to operate at scale, requiring fewer repeat visits and allowing education experts to focus on new resource development and ongoing support. Teachers know the unique needs of their pupils and can tailor learning to individuals. They will also be able to exploit opportunities within the wider curriculum for revisiting and recalling previous learning.

Qualitative evidence: Subject/PSHE Lead & Support Staff, Hebburn

“It is really important for this to be free as it may be harder for schools to fund these kinds of resources.”

Qualitative evidence: Classroom Teacher & Subject/PSHE Lead, Lowther
“These resources have particularly helped students from low-income families. With less experience and explanations at home, it is vital that school fills these gaps. LifeSavers has been a valuable resource by presenting the content in blocks linked to themes.”

In 2023, JFF launched a research project focused on removing barriers to financial education for children in vulnerable circumstances. This is part of a programme funded by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) through their new ‘Improving Financial Wellbeing through Teacher and Practitioner Training and Targeted Provision’ programme.

The findings of this research indicate that the main barrier to financial education in Alternative Provision (AP) settings for primary-aged pupils is the lack of resources that engage learners with additional needs. 64% of AP teachers surveyed are not currently teaching financial education at all.

To support teachers more effectively in AP settings, we need to understand how children with additional needs engage with resources. Our research indicated that primary-age pupils in AP settings engage better through speaking and listening activities, rather than worksheets. In response, JFF has developed Conversation Cards and a Money Adventure game. The next phase of this research is to pilot new teacher CPD training and observe how children respond to these new resources in the classroom. We would welcome increased support for teachers and pupils learning outside mainstream education settings.

Question 4

• Should the provision of financial education in schools be extended beyond key stages three and four?

• Is there scope for it to be embedded more extensively at primary-school level?

As previously stated, JFF’s focus is on improving financial education in primary schools. JFF agrees that financial education should be embedded in core subjects like mathematics, but we have also seen the benefits of embedding a cross-curricular approach to financial education. Primary schools have used our LifeSavers resources to engage pupils in conversations about money in PSHE, Maths, and even less expected subjects like Art and Religious Education.

Due to the pressures placed on teachers in the existing curriculum, JFF does not recommend additional targets around financial literacy. Rather, JFF suggests linking financial literacy requirements to the existing points in the curriculum, allowing schools to embed money lessons in their curriculum maps and encouraging teachers to innovate. Hence JFF focuses efforts on developing the capabilities of teachers to enable them to use their own expert insight and understanding of individual pupils and apply them to building the foundations of their own financial resilience.

Qualitative evidence: Classroom Teacher & Assistant Headteacher, London
“We use Lifesavers in our cross curricular lessons as well as more specific PSHE and Maths lessons. Using LifeSavers as a means of explaining financial literacy to Upper Key Stage 2 (9-11 year olds) is vital - when I used the resources in this way, I was astounded to learn just how little children knew and how they took family finances for granted.”

Qualitative Evidence: Primary School Support Staff, Worksop
“Hearing some of the comments the children make about money and the issues it raises, makes us very aware in school that guidance and the opportunity to think and talk about money is needed. We live in an area that is classed as one of the most deprived in the country and money issues arise constantly. Support to understand and work through ideas about saving, spending, needs and wants, is vital if they are to build the confidence to look at and talk about these matters when they arise in the world outside school.”

In Milo’s Money, JFF’s resource for Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, the links are again clear with PSHE and Mathematics, Literacy and the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework. All of these are presented clearly for teachers, alongside a variety of curriculum models to aid the integration of the materials into the school curriculum delivery strategy.

Qualitative evidence: Classroom Teacher & Subject/PSHE Lead, Liverpool
“The children in KS1 have really enjoyed Milo's Money and providing the toy has brought the story to life for the pupils. The resources have had a positive impact on the sessions delivered as it they have empowered teachers and made it easier to deliver sessions.”

Question 5

• The Government has outlined proposals to ensure that all students study some form of maths up until the age of 18 – should financial education be included in these plans and, if so, how?

JFF’s work is currently focussed on primary-aged pupils and, therefore, we do not have the organisational learnings to adequately contribute to this question. However, our observations and experience are such that we believe financial education should exist across the curriculum.

Question 6

• Examples of best practice in teaching financial education are welcomed.

Moneybox Productions is a new resource piloted by JFF in 2023 to meet a need identified by primary level teachers for fun and engaging ways to have conversations about money.

Moneybox Productions provides free drama resources for teachers in primary school settings. The resources were designed in collaboration with teachers to create opportunities to teach and learn about money, as well as connect with families, carers and the broader community.

Participating teachers received a box full of props and a collection of script starters to help children practice money decision-making through play. All the scripts and props are age appropriate, fun, and related to money scenarios. They were developed based on existing learnings from our 5 Big Questions resources which encourage children to engage with money around four core values: Wisdom, Generosity, Thankfulness and Justice.

Working in small groups, students apply skills such as decision making and comprehending consequences to develop unique and satisfying conclusions to the stories. With multiple models of delivery, Moneybox Productions activities are flexible and build towards the writing, staging, and rehearsing of short skits, followed by a performance for friends and family. This also presents an opportunity to share additional (supplied) financial literacy resources in the school community.

This helps them to understand more about money and develops:

• Critical thinking and problem solving

• Creativity and imagination

• Collaboration and communication

• Digital literacy

• Citizenship

Financial education concepts are also developed successfully through engaging children in rich discussion. All our resources give teachers the tools they need to set up opportunities for children to explore financial situations and knowledge through speaking and listening. Children who are encouraged to talk confidently will take that confidence on with them when dealing with financial situations in the future. These speaking and listening opportunities enable children to practise and rehearse their responses in a safe way.

Evidence from teachers indicates that Moneybox Productions has helped to improve learning outcomes, including:

• Awareness of options/choices around money

• Anticipating consequences

• Understanding the value of saving

• Understanding wants vs needs

 Qualitative Evidence: Year 3 Teacher, Lancashire

“They loved using the clapper board and dressing up.  It helped them to imagine they were different characters and how to use money.”

 Qualitative Evidence: EYFS/KS1 Teacher, Liverpool

“It has motivated and inspired staff to engage children in discussions about money to support their early financial literacy/ language. We feel more inspired to engage parents in our teaching and provisions for teaching money.”