Donna’s Story: How financial education inspires children at school
Financial education champion Donna Kaye is Assistant Principal at Bridgeview Special School and Whitehouse Pupil Referral Unit and has years of experience in education.
Now, working across two primary schools for children with additional needs, Donna has embedded LifeSavers into the curriculum to help open doors to futures that pupils might otherwise not believe possible.
'It's especially important for our children to be able to manage money because a lot of them are vulnerable and could be at risk of being taken advantage of. Using LifeSavers, we see our pupils build their self-awareness and confidence with money and grow to be able to make informed choices. By Key Stage 2 they are applying this learning, for example when going to the shops.
A number of our pupils are carers for parents or siblings. This can mean them taking responsibility for financial decisions, such as going to the shops on their own, from quite a young age. A lot of our children also live in deprivation.
Through our conversations, you see that some are really aware of their household bills and the spending trade-offs parents are making. They see the financial pressures such as not being able to pay the rent or their electric going off. It's important we give these children hopes and dreams beyond their current circumstances.
The digitisation of money can be really hard for children, as they don't see something being given up, and it makes spending money very easy. We help them understand that there is real money behind 'clicks' and 'taps'.
We use coins, discuss their expectations and the costs, wants vs needs, financial responsibility, and how money makes us feel. We've had feedback from parents that this is helping build more positive relationships between them and their children.'