Education strategy and policy

Financial capability

Financial Capability: the Government’s Long-Term Approach is a consultation document published in January 2007. It states that “all children and young people have access to a planned and coherent programme of personal finance education, so that they leave school with the skills and confidence to manage their money well”.

Helping you make the most of your money is a joint action plan from HM Treasury and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) which follows up the consultation on the long-term approach. The section on children announces that the government is providing an extra £11.5 million for a three-year personal finance programme in schools, with a particular emphasis placed on primary schools. The programme, called My Money, is being delivered by pfeg and will focus on the financial decisions children meet from when they first encounter money to when they leave school, including their Child Trust Fund.

The National PSHE Continuous Professional Development accredited programme has been enhanced to include a module on economic wellbeing and financial capability.  This is now available to at least 500 teachers each year.

Developing financially capable young people is an Ofsted survey report which follows visits by inspectors to 21 schools and colleges and outlines the case for personal finance education, outlines the factors contributing to good practice and suggests the learning outcomes that might be expected of a financially capable 16-year-old.

There have been several recent reviews of financial education provision in schools and elsewhere across Europe by the European Commission and across the wider Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) area, covering 30 countries.

Primary curriculum

Sir Jim Rose, a former director of inspection at Ofsted, was asked in January 2008 by Ed Balls, former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to undertake an independent review of the primary curriculum. An interim report of the views of stakeholders and proposals of the Rose review team was published in December 2008 and the final report on 30 April 2009.

The Review recommends a revised primary school curriculum consisting of essential skills for life and learning and six new compulsory areas of learning.  Financial capability is included as part of ‘mathematical understanding’ which has a section on Money in it and of ‘understanding physical development health and wellbeing’ which has a section on economic wellbeing.  There is more detail on developing financial capability overall than in the present primary curriculum.

The recommendations in the final report were open to public consultation until July 2009.  The Government has already accepted them in principle pending the outcomes of the consultation.  Following legislation in the 2009-10 parliamentary session, the new primary curriculum is currently planned for introduction in schools from September 2011. You can view the final report below.

Secondary curriculum

The curriculum for young people aged 11-19 was extensively reviewed from 2005 and a new curriculum for this age group was published in 2007 and has been in place in schools since September 2008. Programmes of study and other material are available from the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), the link to which is below.

New financial capability guidance from the Department for Education (formerly DCSF) on 'Financial Capability in the Secondary Curriculum: Key Stages 3 and 4 ' has now been published.  The guidance is for secondary school senior leaders, subject coordinators, local authority staff and other adults who work with secondary schools who need to understand what financial capability is and how it can be built into planned and coherent programmes of personal finance education across the curriculum.  It is also for secondary teachers who need to plan units of work, events and activities that contribute to the school’s overall planned programme and to deliver these both within and outside the classroom.

Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE education) has two new programmes of study, one for personal wellbeing and one for economic wellbeing and financial capability. Further guidance on the subject can be found on the PSHE Association link below.

In October 2008 Ministers announced their intention to make PSHE education statutory and set up the Macdonald Review to investigate the most effective way of achieving this. The Review's report, published in April 2009, recommends that PSHE education should become a compulsory foundation subject in secondary schools and a compulsory area of learning in primary schools – following what the Rose Review is recommending (see above under the primary section).  pfeg supports these recommendations and agrees that the issues raised by Macdonald about successfully embedding PSHE education in schools are the same as those for embedding financial capability.  If Parliament approves this change, PSHE education will become statutory from September 2011 onwards. View the Macdonald Review report below.

The government is also funding a secondary curriculum support programme that has been running since 2007. Schools and teachers of PSHE education will receive further support during 2009-10 through a programme run by the PSHE Association. This will be led by a National Subject Lead and supported through a team of regional support advisers in each Government region who will work closely with pfeg regional staff. The additional module on economic wellbeing and financial capability within the accredited National PSHE CPD programme is another aspect of this support.

General policy on children’s wellbeing

The Children’s Plan is the key document for the new approach to children, schools and families taken by Gordon Brown’s administration. While it does not go into any detail on personal finance education, it contains a wealth of background thinking and policies on the children’s agenda.

Every Child Matters was introduced by The Children’s Act in 2004 and states that every child, whatever their background or circumstances, should have the support they need to:

• be healthy
• stay safe
• enjoy and achieve
• make a positive contribution
• achieve economic wellbeing.