We need your thoughts on Finance lessons being dropped from Schools Bill

[CatherineHMumsnet]

There is another thread debating sex education and home schooling elements of the PSHE being dropped from the Schools Bill here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/942891-Fear-for-your-children-39-s-education-under-the-Tories but we had an interesting email in from finance expert Martin Lewis pointing out that the removal of PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education)from the Schools Bill also means that compulsory financial education has been dropped too.

What do you reckon? Do you agree as Lewis puts it: 'We're a nation that educates our youth into debt when they go to university, but never educates them about debt.'

No, it is not the school's role.

It is up to the parents to tell their whingeing children, "no, you can't have that". The big problem is that "I want" gets, and it starts from the toddler tantrum times, and gets worse.

If you always have the policy of saying "no" to your children we can't afford it/it's not your birthday/it's not Christmas, then they grow up with appropriate expectations.

If they do want something, then get them to cut the grass, wash the car, etc. Teach them to earn the money first.

And when you want to give them a treat, they really appreciate it. They look after their possessions and don't vandalise them because it is not easy come: easy go.

Let the school's role be limited to maths lessons and sixth form enrichment. But don't expect the school to teach them values - that is the parents' role.

If children don't get it, then it is the parenting that needs to be tackled, not the children's education.

I do agree with Lewis - I wish I had had some financial education at school, and I wish that the financial education my older DCs (now 22 & 20) presumably recieved had been of better quality. Because really they seem to be as clueless as I was at their age, but with a hell of a lot more student debt.

It doesn't have to be about values - I agree that should come from the home - but more specific stuff - what does APR mean? How is it calculated? What's an ISA? What's a base rate? etc. Stuff that might sound like the bleeding obvious but really isn't when you're fresh out of sixth form.

Learning isn't restricted to school, you know. You can keep on learning afterwards, even if not in education. I am pretty sure I have learned more about life after leaving formal education. It's easier now, with unlimited resources, literally, at one's fingertips.

I would wager that a 14/15 year old does not need to understand the concept of APR because they are many years away from ever needing to know. Once they have decided they need to take out a loan, they can find out everything there is to know about APR.

We never had any kind of financial training at my school. I left the sixth form in 2003, so not that long ago. I do wonder if it's because it was a private school though?
I do think we need to educate our children about real life. Bring cookery back into the classroom for a start. I'll never forget, aged 18, asking my dad how I was meant to write a cheque. His face was liek this . I never knew what a mortgage was (parents were lifelong renters) or how to deal with credit cards (ie don't apply for one in the first place). I went off to university with no comprehension of the debt I was getting myself into, and have had trouble with my finances ever since.

It's time we stopped wanking around in schools and teaching things we need our young adults to learn that are going to directly impact on their lives- I remember struggling for months with various geometry which has never even come into my life, time which could have been better spent actually giving me some life skills. I know that had I been taught the basics of finance, it would have prevented me getting in a huge financial hole in my early twenties

Those saying it's up to the parents-
My parents never had a mortgage. The idea of rent was pretty simple for me to understand. I never had a mortgage explained to me.
Nor did my parents have loans or credit card debt.
I am only 26 and tbh have had no financial education and a hell of a lot of debt directly caused by going to university, which failed to get me a highly paid job as the government sent practically all of my generation to university, so my degree may as well be written on toilet paper. Is my debt caused by lack of education? I would say definately yes, as if the student loan had been properly explained to me, I would have thought twice, I really would have done.

Finance can be taught with English Literature. As M r Micawber says in David Copperfield Income 20s Expenditure 19&6 equals happiness. Income 20s, Expenditure 20s &6 equals misery (or words to that effect).

The school timetable appears to be crammed to overflowing so something has to give.

we might have access to more info but these days we also have more access to lies advertising. it's increasingly harder to decode the small print etc, naive youngsters (hark at me, I'm only 23 lol) need to know how much they are being manipulated by sneaky wording etc.

Actually, with things like APR and overall regulation, it is much easier to compare financial products than in the old days.

I don't buy the 'no one told me' argument. Are people really under the illusion that it isn't someoen else's money when you run up debt?

Caveat Emptor.

To those who say it is the job of the parents to educate their children about finance:

How on earth do you expect us ever to solve the problem by just blithely stating what 'should' be happening, rather than dealing with the situation in hand? Like it or not, children are not being taught financial management skills at home- are you really advocating that we withhold essential life skills from these children because they should already know it?

Would you refuse to teach a 13 yr old child to read on the basis that they should be able to do it already, or that someone else should have taught them? Why is this different?

Teaching finance in school will equip an entire generation with the skills to teach their children about finance. It will only take one generation to embed.
It's far too late to teach parents about finance now and expect them to pass it on to their children; teaching children is a far more cost effective method.

*already know it = already know them

13 years of nu-lab and children can't read or know that if you subtract a big number from a small one, you get a negative.

Bring on the Tories, please,

PHSE total utter waste of time.

i think the only thing they could usefully give more education is sex education, paricularly in relation to STDs (one lesson was not enough) as you can't expect parents to have the scientific knowledge to inform kids about this accurately. But you could put this on the biology curriculum.

finance is not something to be taught in schools, as it is the kind of life skill that is, well, learned from life....and from your parents. also anyone selling a financial product is already obliged by law to make potential consequences clear to the buyer - this responsibility should be made clearer perhaps.

Geometry you can learn at schol - it is your one opportunity. no-one out there is going to try to make you interested in it when you leave school.

financial products on the other hand, you will be exposed to fairly shortly after school - people will try and make you interested in them, i think it is the responsibiliy of those same people to point out the downsides (and the law is clear on this point, but in some cases has not been enforced well enough)

So would you refuse to teach a 13 year old to read if they couldn't? On the basis that they should have been taught it already by somebody else?

Or would you just acknowledge that they couldn't read and teach them?

Why are financial skills different?

It is very reasonable to teach children reading at school. What a ridiculous assertion otherwise!

The mathematical side of finance is also taught in schools.

The values side should be taught by parents. The debt issue is because people want it now and can't control their spending. The know that if they spend more than they earn, they will go into debt, but either don't care or can't control themselves. That isn't soemthing for schools.

Like many problems in our society, they can be traced to non-existent family values and poor parenting.

I agree with tethersend. it's just too idealistic to leave it to parents. how are the kids supposed to learn from their family if the parents are the ones buying everything they can't afford, getting into massive credit card debt etc?

my DSCs think having an IVA is normal. they think it's ridiculous to save to buy a luxury item when you can get a loan, and that we're fools for not having Sky when it's only £40 a month. the 'provvy man' regularly calls at their mum's/nan's houses, they just do not see that he may as well burgle them for the amount of money he makes off them!

if DH wasn't still taking an active part in their lives, are we really supposed to think they'd learn all they need to know from home?!

sorry to sound so bitchy. it's just really frustrating knowing that their views are already so entrenched and we can't seem to make a difference

I don't think a one-hour lesson from their form tuture when they are in Year 10 is going to make much difference to your family, tbh. The problem is far deeper than anything she can tell them.

form tutor, that would be (before Tethersend corrects me )

"It is very reasonable to teach children reading at school. What a ridiculous assertion otherwise!"

Who on earth was asserting otherwise?

I asked why teaching reading in that situation was any different to teaching financial management?

What about sex education?

It was a long-held belief that it was not the job of a school to teach this. Yet now it is routinely taught in schools.

How on earth do you suppose this happened? Perhaps things changed?

Or do you disagree with sex education?

BTW, knowing you will get into debt is not the same as knowing that debt is a bad thing.

It is your style to go off at a tangent and bring in unrelated topics, te.

Let's just stick to financial education. Sex education is still controversial enough that many parents opt out. I don't with mine because they go to Catholic schools and I am pretty sure they get a hefty dose of morals along with empowering them to just say no.

In financial education, the role that schools have to play is different from the role that parents should play. As a parent, I don't want what they learn about social issues to be dictated by this awful government we have now. I want to impart my own values.

Having a couple of PSHEE lessons dedicated to financial education is not what is needed. Children need to be exposed to good financial management as they are growing up, starting from when they throw their first tantrum in the sweetie aisle in the supermarket. Leaving it to the school is too little too late.

It is your style to completely miss the point, Mme Blueberry.

Or perhaps you are simply unable to answer the questions?

Still, good of you to let me know you own the thread and tell me what I can and can't talk about.

I am likening sex education to financial education, because there are parallels. It's called an analogy.

You know that. Please stop pretending you don't.

What happens when parents are not as concerned as you about their children's financial well being?

Teaching financial management in schools would enable the next generation to be taught financial management by their parents, which we agree is a good thing.

haven't read the thread, just the OP. I wasn't aware that my children learnt anything about finance at school beyond compound interest, Clearly if they have it hasn't sunk in.

I am teaching them about money management. They have had pocket money and saving accounts for years. They have/will have ISAs when they get to 16 and are expected to research their own. They are taught about debt. Many parents, however, are useless at money management themselves and hence incapable of teaching it.

To be fair, tsp, it was te who brought up illeterate 13 year olds. I have no experience of these pupils as all of mine are proficient readers by then. Handwriting can be a bit dodgy, but their reading is confident, even those who don't speak English at home.

And these politics threads are bound to be polarising.