It has been two years since the Work Out Your Money team, Citizens Advice Havant, have been delivering their financial capability programme in secondary schools in the Havant, Leigh Park and Waterlooville areas. Their partner schools have grown in number and widened in area to recently include a secondary school in Fareham and a home education group in Southampton. Educating 11-16 year olds to manage their money effectively from a young age is such a crucial life skill.
Fiona Ross, Money Mentor with Work Out Your Money, explains the importance of operating a savings account from a young age. A MyBank's Annual Saver Survey of 11-16 year olds showed nearly two thirds are not saving money at a bank or building society despite 74% of young people stashing on average £3.41 a week1. Our programme provides a lesson for Year 7 and 8 which deals exactly with this issue. The fun and interactive lesson helps these students build awareness of the money they have available to them and how some of it can be saved to fund future aspirations. It doesn’t matter how little they get, it is how they manage it that is important. These skills can be transferred to budgeting when they are older.
We have been very fortunate to work with Havant Academy, The Bourne Community School, Horndean Technology College, Crookhorn College, Warblington School and Oaklands Catholic School, with bookings from new schools up to July 2017. So far we have reached 1300 students from Year 6 to Year 11.
We can tailor our delivery to suit the school time table. Some schools opt to have a PSHE/Citizenship day, whilst others factor it in to their time table for either Citizenship or Maths. Student feedback is so valuable to us. The students tell us that they enjoy having someone ‘from outside’ delivering the sessions. They love how practical the lessons are and how they will use the information and skills learned, in the near future. The teachers comment on how engaging and relevant the sessions are and all of the schools we have worked with have invited us back.
We are keen to develop new partnerships with secondary schools in the area, particularly Hayling Island and East Hampshire. If you know of a secondary school whose students would benefit from personal finance lessons from qualified and experienced teachers, just email us and we would be more than happy to explain further. Work Out Your Money also deliver sessions to adults and established groups in the community. You can contact us on info@workoutyourmoney.com or telephone 023 9247 6013.