A modern-day Christmas tale is being narrated to children at St George’s primary school in Chorley, Lancashire.
“I lost track of how much I was spending,” says the mother in the story. “I just wanted to make Christmas special.”
The tale, incorporating debts, bailiffs and school bullies, is part of a lesson being taught by teenage “Money Mentors” from nearby Southlands high school.
The older children take the class of year-five pupils through exercises on “wants and needs” as well as the story of a family’s Christmas debt hangover, as seen through the eyes of a child.
Although financial education became compulsory in English secondary schools in September it is not yet on the national curriculum for primary schools. But sessions for younger children like the one at St George’s are in high demand as schools seek to tackle a rise in the number of families struggling with crippling debts through borrowing from payday and doorstep lenders.
“It’s getting a conversation going about money and we are traditionally very stoic about that in Britain,” says Dave Goulden, a teacher at Southlands school who helps the older children put the lessons together.
“If you can get kids talking about it in primary schools, that helps and it gets back to parents as well.”
In the class being taught by his students, their young pupils are busy separating wants from needs. They are pretty sure toys and chocolate fall in the first category while water and shelter are in the second. But friends, school trips and computers appear to be a grey area.
“You need a computer for work if you are a teacher or something,” says Josh, aged nine.
“But computers won’t save your life,” says Aidan.
Their teacher, Andy Smith, says designing the programme so older students teach the main lessons is helping get pupils interested. “It gets rid of that ‘uncool’ tag,” he says.
His 35 pupils are among 4,000 primary children in the region learning about budgets, savings and debts in lessons designed and taught by secondary school students.
The scheme was created by the Debt Advice Foundation , the charity that runs a national helpline, on the principle that prevention is better than cure.
After the successful pilot scheme, the charity hopes to roll out the programme across the country. It sees demand continuing to rise, not least because research has suggested secondary school age is too late to change attitudes to money.
The charity’s chairman, Dennis Benson, says the money management course was born out of the experiences of people on the helpline.
“We were obsessed with the thought that debt was becoming a major social problem and we could see no escape from that. We still can’t, frankly, because although we are talking about an economic recovery and the creation of jobs, the number of people in jobs with debts is very high,” says Benson, former chairman of a Lancashire NHS foundation trust.
The charity’s main educational aim is to help form children’s attitudes, although Benson hopes pupils will take their books home to show parents.
“Our view was that realistically we are not going to be able to re-educate older people but if you can teach the young people about good debt and bad debt we can start something, get a forest fire going,” he says.
When the English curriculum changed in September it marked a breakthrough for charities that had long campaigned for financial education. But the government must not stop there, they say.
The Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) wants the subject extended to all primary schools, including academies and free schools which are not bound by the national curriculum. When the charity surveyed teachers, more than 80% said financial education must begin in primary school. Debt Advice Foundation’s education manager, Brian Souter, foresees personal finance lessons eventually becoming statutory in primary schools.
“Schools, through no fault of their own, have become entrenched in exams and the life skills have suffered,” says Souter, who spearheaded the charity’s money management project while still in his previous role as deputy headteacher at Southlands school.
“If we don’t do this, we are abdicating our responsibilities as adults here.”
The worries about household debts are widely shared. Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts for the government suggest that over the next five years households will become even more indebted than they were on the eve of the financial crisis, with their gross debt rising to more than 180% of incomes from around 170% in 2008.
Schools that Souter works with report growing concerns about families struggling with exorbitant charges on their short-term borrowing from payday lenders. The lenders often have annual interest rates in excess of 5,000% and costs mount quickly if the borrowing period is extended or a repayment is missed.
In a bid to promote more affordable loans, some schools on the money management programme are working with credit unions.
Every pupil at All Saints Church of England primary in Chorley has a savings account with a credit union. “It’s hearing about these doorstep lenders and we had parents coming into us upset and struggling,” says headteacher Sarah Partington.
“We need people to know how to borrow from somewhere sensible.”
Down the road at Coppull primary the local credit union set up a stand at a recent parents’ evening. The school was running the financial education scheme.
“We were hoping these lessons were filtering home and this is the next step to getting to the parents,” says the headteacher, Michael Chambers.
“We have seen very much that money was becoming an issue for our families, for example, in terms of referrals to food banks.”
The Debt Advice Foundation knows such problems are common and it is talking to potential partner schools in other regions about introducing its student-taught lessons. The charity wants government help with promotion but is wary of involvement from Whitehall, for fear a grassroots initiative would become too bureaucratic.
“If they said we would like you to be part of this department or the other, then Lord help us,” says Benson.
He saw first-hand the damage done by problem debts when he worked in the NHS and is determined to change attitudes.
“I have almost been scarred by the experiences I have had of talking to people who are suffering from the consequences of debt,” says the 82-year-old. “I can think of many more enjoyable things to do with my dotage. But it just feels important.”
