In December 2012, The Education Village Darlington brought in Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project to deliver sessions in personal finance to all year 8 students.
The mission was simple; provide every year 8 student with real functional life skills and enhanced confidence with money that they could carry on into their future careers and lives.
127 students all received an hour’s stand-alone session of My Choices taken from the full programme Money Twist designed specifically for KS3 and KS4 learners. Topics which were covered in this module included needs, wants and budgeting, Youth Employment Laws, Minimum Wage and Saving.
Interactive activities were the favourite by the learners and feedback received after each session showed that the workshops had really engaged with every student.
Percentage of participants reporting good or better: (127 Students Surveyed) After the programme:
- Understanding of three realistic ways to save money: 83%
- Ability to prioritise needs and wants: 74%
- Ability to use a budget to help me make effective use of my money: 76%
As well as measuring the academic outcomes of the workshops we also thought it was important to capture the soft outcomes and see how the young people really felt about what they had learnt in an hour. Here’s what some of the students told us…
“It was a fun and easy way to learn about money”
“It’s very informative and helps me understand the difference between my needs and wants, now I can budget”
“It was very good and made me think about my money and my future”“It helped me to know how to spend my money and what on to save some money for some treats every now and then.”
“I think it was good because it actually taught us something about money but also the future of money.”
“I think they were very good because they involved everyone”
“Helps you learn things and stop spending, start saving and get a job”
Katherine Humpleby, Assistant Head and Student Aspirations Leader said:
“Excellent – Students gained key knowledge, skills and understanding of financial management”