Did you know that average pocket money now totals £6.32? The average eight year-old already has a mobile phone and by the time they are ten, children are likely to be shopping online using their parents’ credit or debit card.
Learning to manage money successfully for the future has never been so important. That’s why June 29th sees the start of an annual My Money Week – an exciting opportunity to help children and young people learn about how to manage their money in fun, exciting and relevant ways. My Money Week is part of My Money a financial education inititative funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) led by pfeg and supported by its partners: Edcoms, NCB and PSHE Association. Schools have access to a range of resources and a fully dedicated website to help them plan one lesson or a range of exciting and engaging personal finance activities throughout the week. There are whole school challenges inspired by celebrities such as Chris Hoy, Ben Fogel and The Saturday’s.
Primary and secondary schools around the country are already planning exciting activities for their pupils. Weatherfield Special School in Dunstable is running a milk and fruit shop. These break time snacks are usually handed out to the children but this week they have to pay for them. Each class has a budget for the week and needs to work out how much fruit and milk they need and what they can afford to buy. Groups of children are taking it in turns to go to the shop, ask for the items, select the right notes and coins and check their change. The shop is being run by Year 10 students and each day a different group are adding up the prices, taking the money and giving out change.
Pupils at Pontville School, Lancashire, will be learning about how to open a bank account. Younger students will take part in role play activities that involve opening bank accounts whilst older students will actually open bank accounts with parental permission and support. A week of activities will be centred around a ‘save and spend’ theme based around the tuck shop, dining room and reward activities. A main charity event is to be planned around the need of the charity and ‘what money can buy’ lessons.
For more information visit www.mymoneyonline.org or www.pfeg.org