They were actually super about education and working with people in debt. I joined in a team that dealt with vulnerable and insolvent customers. We also covered bereavement.
Edit: this is what they used for the primary school visits. The volunteers would be from various teams around the business. https://www.skills-4-bills.co.uk
It’s definitely something that’s needed at Primary School (I’m a Primary Head) and as you say it needs to be modelled by parents ideally - unfortunately as also mentioned a lot of parents struggle to model (sometimes for reasons completely out of their control) and as such we need to teach in school. Banks often have an ‘outreach’ person to do this.
I’ve volunteered to work with Monzo before on putting something together for schools if Monzo would like to do something @BethS. First and foremost though a children’s account needs creating - a pity the prepaid didn’t stay for children!
For me it isn’t absolving parents of responsibility, but acknowloging (as @anon23935806 also mentioned) that a good many parents really don’t have decent knowledge to pass on.
Rather than forcing you to eat healthy via rules but not necessarily increasing understanding of why, I see this as providing tools for later life decisions by providing learning now.
An example being teaching the concept that loans aren’t borrowing from a bank, but are borrowing from your future self, helps someone to make a forward thinking decision. If this was taught at 10, then again at 14/16, it helps give context to the world.
No-one has mentioned them but MyBnk are doing very good work in this space.
Saw mention of how to deal with debt collection, which would be useful.
Couple side things which really would have benefited me, if it were more of a general life skills course, are:
The need to swap to get the best deal is also a life skill!
I think this is a great idea. Not only for saving, but for things like the process of getting a mortgage and how it works, the hoops you have to jump through for instance. How to invest your money, the risks etc. Taxes, why we pay them, where they go, what NI is etc. Renting contracts, leases, freehold/leasehold, energy bills and stuff that we really don’t need to think about at such a young age, but will be SO thankful for the knowledge in the future.
Yes, this should start at a younger age, preferably by parents - but some kids don’t have parents, some kids don’t have parents who KNOW about these things or understand or can give their kids the best advice. I know from personal experience, my mum is AWFUL with her financial management and I’m the one who’s pushed her to get it all in order, I told her about 0% credit card balance transfers and switching energy providers etc.
I’ve looked up everything to do with renting and getting a mortgage, home ownership and investing. No one taught me, I went looking for it - but so many young people don’t and would really benefit if they were taught this information.
I can tell you it would be so much more useful than learning pythagorus theorem.
I would use my life as a case study for how not to manage money, scare the bejesus out of them where overuse of credit is concerned and for gods sake SAAAAAAAAVE!
Compound interest is in Maths in year 9 and again at GCSE
Did you mean the Deutschmark or did you mean the Reichsmark?
Yes Reichsmark, sorry, I was thinking of the dramatic events under Weimar. I think hyperinflation in currencies and its effects would make a fascinating class for young people, as most people perceive currencies as very stable unless they personally live through events like this.
They’d have to raise the contactless limit by a fair bit.
Hyperinflation is fascinating but did it at GCSE and think I was the only one who thought that.
No matter what we think, young people will be bored because they’re forced to study it.