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Primary school children should learn about money, say teachers

Lucinda Beeman
Written By:
Lucinda Beeman
Posted:
Updated:
05/12/2014

Nine in ten teachers do not believe the government has done enough by making financial education compulsory in English secondary schools.

From September, children aged 11 and over will learn about how to manage their personal finances as part of their regular mathematics and “citizenship” education. Students will learn about topics including budgeting, debt and taxes.

However, the new requirement does not affect secondary schools which are not obliged to follow the National Curriculum, such as academies and free schools. Primary schools are also unaffected.

Tracey Bleakley, chief executive of the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg), which carried out the survey, said: “Our message is simple. Every school – whether primary or secondary, maintained, academy or free school – should be teaching its pupils how to manage money. Until we reach this point, we are failing in our responsibility as a society to prepare young people for the challenges they will face throughout their adult lives.”

According to pfeg’s research, some 83 per cent of teachers believe that financial education must begin in primary school, not secondary school, to be most effective, especially as 70 per cent of teachers find their pupils encountering money and financial decisions earlier than they used to. 

Previous research by the Money Advice Service found that financial habits are established by the age of seven.

Bleakley added: “Teachers want to see the government go much further on financial education, and so do we. Financial education’s new place in secondary schools is a huge leap forward, but without starting at a much earlier age, at primary school level, we are missing out on a huge opportunity to improve financial capability in the UK.”