About the project

Overview

What Money Means is a groundbreaking project designed to create a step change in the way personal finance education is taught in primary schools.

The project aims to increase:

• the quality and quantity of personal finance education;
• the confidence and competence of those teaching it; and
• the involvement of bank staff in supporting their local primary schools by adding value in the classroom.

This is being achieved by helping local authorities to develop and deliver a range of different sustainable approaches to personal finance education, and train and support teachers in how to use these approaches in the classroom and integrate them into school planning. The project has been designed in a way that encourages teachers to be experimental and creative, and identify what works well in the context of local and regional needs.

What Money Means builds on the outcomes of a scoping project undertaken in 2006. It is funded by £3.4 million contributed from HSBC that also expect to involve 10,000 of its employees as volunteers to support primary teachers during the course of the project.

A programme of action research

What Money Means began with a programme of action research based in 8 local authorities. Each action research project explored a different theme or approach to developing financial capability:

Identifying needs and priorities

• Establishing children's understanding of money (Essex)
  Developing and testing a 'draw and write' research tool for the classroom.
• Planning the personal finance education curriculum (Cambridgeshire)
  
• Developing and testing an audit/planning tool (a framework of questions for children to address) for financial education at key stages 1 and 2.

Developing classroom practice

• Financial capability and mathematics (Medway)
  Developing financial education within the renewed mathematics Framework.
• Financial capability and PSHE (Tower Hamlets)
  Developing classroom activities and examples of children's work that show the link between financial education and personal, social and health education.
• Turning money into poetry (Hartlepool)
  Using poetry and story to explore the social and moral dilemmas surrounding money.

Involving the wider community

• Volunteers adding value in the classroom, involving bank employees in financial education (Coventry) - Developing and testing guidance and training materials for both bank and primary school staff.
• Financial education for the financially excluded (Bolton)
  Developing financial education for children and parents as part of a whole authority approach to tackling financial exclusion.
• Financial capability through family learning (Hertfordshire)
  Working with extended school clusters to develop ways for children and their parents/carers to learn about money together.

Materials and resources

Publications

Opportunities to develop financial capability: activities and resources for primary schools

The action research phase of the project was extremely successful and the outcomes have been captured in a set of materials which include a summary of each research project and supporting materials generated by them. They contain a broad range of resources that practitioners can use and experiment with in relation to their own programme of personal finance education:

Opportunities to develop financial capability - activities and resources for primary schools contains planning tools, suggestions for activities, stimulus materials and examples of children’s work that primary teachers can use and adapt for their own programme of personal finance education.

Developing volunteering partnerships: a guide for teachers, volunteers and trainers

The publication Developing volunteering partnerships - a guide for teachers, volunteers and trainers is available to volunteers, teachers and local authority staff who want to develop a volunteering partnership that supports personal finance education. It includes information that will help volunteers prepare and a toolkit for trainers who are working with groups of teachers and volunteers during a twilight session, half or full day workshop.

HSBC are expecting to make 10,000 of its employees available as volunteers as part of the support on offer to primary schools. Volunteers from HSBC will work in partnership with teachers, acting as an extra classroom support or resource to add value where financial capability is being developed in children.

HSBC volunteers will all have completed a day’s training and hold an enhanced disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau.

To order copies of the What Money Means project materials or if you are interested in working with a volunteer please contact pfeg at info@pfeg.org or call us on 020 7330 9470.

If you are an HSBC employee and would like to support a local primary school please visit the HSBC intranet for details of how to register your interest.

2007/08 academic year

What Money Means is now being taken forward in eight new local authorities in the 2007/08 academic year: Brighton and Hove, Camden, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Sunderland and Wigan.

pfeg consultants are providing advice and training at local authority and school level, working with practitioners to explore how well the approaches and materials work, and how they can be used in combination.

Plans for the future

A further 20 local authorities will receive direct support from a pfeg consultant; a total of 36 over the life of the project. The location of these has not yet been agreed, but we aim to achieve a good geographical spread and a range of other factors such as size, urban and rural locations and unitary and county structures.

A further 20 local authorities will be directly supported through What Money Means. If you are from a local authority and would like further information on how to express an interest in joining the project in future years please contact Fiona Hogarth at fiona.hogarth@pfeg.org.

How do I find out more?

For more information, please contact:
Sara Passmore
pfeg Projects Coordinator
sara.passmore@pfeg.org
Tel: 020 7330 9478

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