Financial capability in England
An introduction to financial capability in England
- The required primary curriculum to be taught in schools in England currently remains unchanged from the National Curriculum published in 2000. Full details of the current primary curriculum can be found by clicking the link to the ‘Primary Curriculum – QCDA website’ below.
- Teaching about money is recommended in the non-statutory guidance for personal, social and health education (PSHE) which was published alongside it and in mathematics. The detail of where financial capability is included in this can be found on the ‘England - primary education’ page.
- The primary curriculum has though been recently extensively reviewed by a team led by Sir Jim Rose. Their final report was published in April 2009 and was open to public consultation until July 2009.
- The Rose Review final report recommends a primary curriculum with six new areas of learning where ‘learning about money’ is detailed in the programmes of learning for mathematical understanding and for understanding physical development, health and wellbeing. Information on the Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum is available through the link below. If approved by Parliament, this curriculum will be implemented in schools from September 2011 onwards.
- A revised secondary curriculum was published in 2007, following a two year review by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which is now being implemented in secondary schools.
- The revised secondary curriculum contains two non-statutory programmes of study for what is now called personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE education), one for personal wellbeing and one for economic wellbeing and financial capability.
- Financial capability is also referred to explicitly throughout the revised programmes of study for mathematics and public money is covered in the programmes of study for citizenship. Full details of the revised secondary curriculum and how financial capability fits into it can be found by clicking the link below and on the ‘England - secondary education’ page of this site.
- The Government also recently consulted on whether PSHE education should become a statutory foundation subject within the secondary curriculum, however unfortunately Parliament did not approve this change.
Background
A National Curriculum for all pupils aged 5 to 16 was introduced in England in 1988 consisting of three core subjects (English, mathematics and science) and a number of foundation subjects, all of which had statutory programmes of study and attainment targets.
There are four statutory key stages:
Key Stage 1 – pupils aged 5 to 7
Key Stage 2 – pupils aged 7 to 11
Key Stage 3 – pupils aged 11 to 14
Key Stage 4 – pupils aged 14 to 16
Primary education covers the first two key stages and secondary education includes key stages 3 and 4.
