Hannah and Seagull: Learning Money

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. Today, Moneybox is live in Wakefield, where we've gone back to the classroom at the Trinity Academy Cathedral School. Good afternoon. It is just after three o'clock, so the school day is finished and the students are heading home. But we're staying behind and we haven't got detention. We have taken over the library to talk about money and how it's being taught in schools. And we're sharing the space with the...

Creative Writing Club. Hello. I'm not top of the class today. I'm joined by a special guest. Bobby Siegel is here, the broadcaster, maths teacher and university challenge alumni. Bobby, hello. Hello. I can't resist doing this while we've got you on the programme. I think our listeners are very clever. You are known for setting maths questions. Will you set us a challenge? Of course. So listeners, get a pen and paper out. So you've got £10,000 savings in the bank.

And you're paid 5% interest rate annually at the end of each year. So how many years does it take for the £10,000 to double to £20,000? So a quick summary, £10,000 in savings, 5% interest rate paid annually at the end of each year. How many years does it take for the £10,000 to double to £20,000? Bobby, what if I get it wrong?

I'm a forgiving teacher. The email address is moneybox at bbc.co.uk if you want to send us your answer to that. Bobby, on financial education though, how powerful can school be for giving young people those...

practical money skills. So important, so powerful. So sometimes I bump into some of my former students at Stratford bus station in East London, they tower above me at six foot four, and they say, Hi, Mr. Seagull, you're a great teacher, but they'd wish to learn more about money. And I feel as if... It's like one of the key things that young people can take into the world with them.

Well, financial literacy is on the curriculum, but more than eight in 10 parents and guardians think that most young people leave school without the skills they need. We're going to look at how that could be changed. And we want to hear from you as always. So do get in touch.

teach children about money at home. What do you wish that you'd learned at school to help you manage your finances? And of course, don't forget to send us your maths answers. You can email us. It's moneybox at bbc.co.uk or you can tweet us. at Moneybox.

Now, the good news is this is a school that's stepping up to the challenge of teaching money skills to its teenage students. And before we dive into the classroom, I've been out in the beautiful city of Wakefield. And in the shadow of the cathedral, I asked people there if they thought they...

understood enough about money before leaving school. When the payday came round and stuff like that, seeing that big sum of money, you think, oh, I can go out and spend all that. You don't realise about all... rent mortgage you've got you know your house bills and you've got your food you've got your electric gas all that and you don't really get taught any of that in high school or from college to be honest did you learn about money in school

Yeah, we had these paper coins and paper notes and stuff and we did maths with it and stuff, so that was good. Do you think it helped? A lot, yeah. So did you learn about money at school? Absolutely not. We've got teenagers now, well, young ones and teenagers. Our teenagers are learning very, very little as well. And it's very important.

Because when you're out in the big wide world, you need to know about these things. When they do home economics, it should involve all sorts. Budgeting. Budgeting, how to make certain meals on a budget and mortgages, all that sort of thing. And practical things as well, like re-wearing a plug and stitching on a button, taking up your trousers, things like that. I think life skills. I can't do any of those. Well, I can, but I had a very good mum.

Bobby, I like that point at the end. This is about practical life skills, isn't it? Now, all schools teach maths, but that practical financial knowledge, that's different. As a mathematician, I'm always going to be raving about the intrinsic beauty of my subject. But there is a difference between the theory and the application. And one of the, I think, most important applications of maths and numeracy is through personal finance and financial...

Well, the children here at Trinity Academy Cathedral School are definitely not missing out on any of this. Earlier today, we joined the 12 and 13-year-olds in Year 8 for a financial literacy lesson. So today we're going to have a little look at what some of your goals are for the future. That's going to be the first section and you're going to tell all of us about some of the ambitions that you've got, some of the things you want to achieve and we'll look at how money might play a part in that.

How we can save money and be smart with it and not spend it on that thing. When you think about Having money as an adult, someone with a job, do you think about having loads of money to spend on all the fun stuff you want to do or do you think about bills? Fun stuff and not bills because you want to do stuff, you don't.

want to worry about that stuff do you think it's hard to control what you spend your money on for me yeah because like i want to buy stuff and like it burns a hole in my pocket so the teachers asked you to write down your money goals what do you want to write about Like travelling and buying new cars and stuff. Being a billionaire and buying all the luxury cars. Buying my parents a mansion.

I think if you're a billionaire, they should get two mansions. Yeah, and one for us as well, to be honest. I bought all you little cars. Thank you. Well, we'll hear more from that lesson later on in the programme. Bobby. Is it okay for the presenter of Moneybox Live to say that I actually learned quite a bit in that?

Learning never ends. Well, joining Bobby and me in the library today for this extracurricular programme is Anna Galinda, the school's principal, and Stephanie Fitzgerald, who's head of young people programmes at The Money Charity, which is the organisation that...

ran that class today. Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. Anna, financial education... is already on the curriculum. But the Money and Pension Service, it surveyed 2,000 parents. It found 93% said they think it's important schools teach money skills, but 8 out of 10 of them thought children are leaving school without the skills they need.

I think that has been the situation in the past and I think schools are doing a lot about that now. Certainly at our school, we take this really seriously. Our responsibility to ensure that our students leave with the...

skills and understanding to navigate the world around them and that includes their financial literacy they need to be able to make those decisions and understand how to make those so we're doing a lot about that here and i hope that other schools are as well what kind of financial

skills are are on the curriculum and I know as an academy you don't have to stick to that well the citizenship national curriculum talks about students needing to be prepared to manage their money well so it's left quite open in that context across key stage three and it gives then some really specific things in key stage four so that's years

10 and 11 for our listeners so our 14 to 16 year olds so the kind of things that they need to be prepared to do so that covers all kinds of things like debt management how interest works credit cards being able to budget understanding

what a wage slip looks like I mean for me I had not really seen a wage slip until I was given one and I want to ensure that our students are not in that situation so we cover those things through a really well sequenced curriculum that starts in from my age 11 year olds right through to our 16-year-old.

lesson from the money charity. Bobby, the lesson we were in, the children had to choose their money goals and stick them on this poster, which is a picture of a goal. Some of them were what you'd expect, careers and cars. Some of them were very sweet. touching it says help my parents the same way they did for me this is the same here have a good job so I can retire my family as they're the reason I'm here so lots of lots of different goals a lot of those were you know

cars and careers, which is entirely understandable. Stephanie, it was your charity that's delivering these classes. What kind of demand is there? There's lots. So we, for many years, delivered about 1,000 hours a year of workshop across the UK. And last year, we were really fortunate that we had an increase in funding and we were able to increase by 50%. So we went from 1,000 hours to...

1,500 hours we weren't sure how that would go how tricky it would be you know that's a big increase a lot more schools to get in contact with and get booked in but we ended up having to turn schools and youth organisations away so the demand is huge and that's considering that there's lots

of other amazing charities like us that do similar work um like my bank and young enterprise and red star as well um so we need even more help for schools um and you know the limitation for us is is funding really the work shops are free for state schools so which is fantastic but yeah we know that the limitation is not demand it's not our capacity it is funding and we think that's because you know teachers

are really keen for their young people to receive this important education, but they don't necessarily have the skills or the confidence or the time or the know-how to be able to read that. quite broad, non-specific curriculum and know what to talk about in lessons. I'm sure we're going to talk more about that later on in the programme. I will just say we spoke to, we asked the government about this and a spokesperson for the Department for Education.

pointed out that it's the government has reformed the curriculum it's invested over 100 million pounds in the maths hub program which we'll talk about later on and a spokesperson said high quality financial education is key to making sure young people have the knowledge and financial skills to make those important decisions later in life.

Really briefly, I think it's pretty fair to say that not every single child loves maths lessons. Do you think that high inflation, high interest rates, they've made young people more aware of what they need to understand? They haven't made my interesting, engaging lessons yet.

But I would say my own students, you know, when they're looking at things that they buy drinks or sweets or trainers or consoles, the costs are going up. So everyone's aware of the acute pressures on finances. Thank you. Right. Let's hear a bit more from that money lesson.

Imagine that you're all living in a flat or a house together, so you're all roommates and you've got lots of expenses. your mobile phone, your apps, downloads, your household insurance, eating out and clothes. And what you're trying to do is work out which are your top priorities. your middle priorities and your low priorities. Does that make sense? Yeah. You've got to come to a consensus.

Nah, if we don't have food, I'm dying, so... What would you say, like? A phone. A mobile phone is. Middle, because you need to speak to people. Middle, priorities. What's council tax? Oh, no, that's a monopoly house. Yeah, so that's when you have a house or a flat.

and you've got to pay a certain amount to your local council. Do you have to pay? Every month, yeah. That's top priority because you won't be able to live there if you don't pay for it. I put eating out as low priority because you can just eat at home, it's less expensive and stuff like that. And then I put subscriptions at low priority as well because it's just too expensive, too much money.

And then we put mobile phone at middle priority because you need to call police maybe or ambulance and stuff like that. And then we put bills at top priority and your dental hygiene and stuff like that because it's your main things in life that you need. To be honest, I think you put a haircut in the middle. No, but if you're a woman, you don't have to get your hair cut. In lockdown, I try and do my skin fade.

haircut by myself honestly lads it was not good so for me a middle priority you need to at least have something to enjoy I've noticed some tension in your household where some of you think that eating out ought to be a higher priority. Just cook at home. No, but if you go to a fancy restaurant, it's more expensive. What if you don't know how to cook? The top priorities are bills, rent, savings, food, shopping. Yeah, I think we put them in the right order.

Bobby, it is hard to make some of those spending decisions. Oh, it's a real challenge. Real, real challenge. And you could tell that some of them disagreed on what should be a priority. I'm sure the parents of those students will be listening. There'll be plenty of other mums and dads worried that... their children don't have access to these kinds of financial classes.

How can they work money lessons into their day-to-day lives with their teenagers? I think it's for parents to show the link between their income and expenditure. It could be like their daily shopping, where they're planning for a holiday to make sure that the kids realise the money comes from somewhere. Okay, my eldest is 12. He has already stopped listening to me. You must have taught your fair share of double maths on a Friday afternoon.

How do you make it engaging for teenagers? Even on Friday afternoon, Mr. Seagull can't work miracles. But what I will say is that showing them the real world applications of maths, which is personal finance, and their eyes really do light up. So actually... Applying maths to personal finance, it helps both. Then they see, actually, I can see the point of maths. Okay. Stephanie, what subjects did you decide were important to teach teenagers?

So yes, I hope anything you can think of related to money, we have a module on it. So we have a pick and mix approach, which means that teachers can pick which other subjects they think they want their young people to learn. So we cover all sorts of things, mortgages, penalties.

scams and fraud, my money personality, how to be a savvy consumer, student finance when at uni, I could go on and on. It's a lot, it's a lot for... young people who were just not in that world yet to kind of take in and think about yeah but I think they're all they're really excited they hear adults talking about it they maybe are a bit worried as well you know the cost of living crisis and so they want to know more about

it they want to have it explained to them okay and asking for a friend do you have online resources that parents can use yeah we have a budget builder on our website which is a great budgeting tool that we'd recommend you you know talk your children through it

to help teach them about money. And we also have a student money manual, which I know that a lot of parents, that's kind of a time when talking about money, they feel a bit out of their depth because they don't understand how student finance works and they're worried about their children going off to uni. So we have a great interactive show.

student money manual on our website. So lots for people to use. Thank you. Now, in my experience, teenagers don't like it when we talk about them. So let's talk to a couple.

So joining us now are Molly and Maranatha, who were in that money workshop. Hello, girls. Hello. Oh, I love the enthusiasm. Maranatha, we heard it get quite lively in that session. And that was you getting strict with the boys about haircuts. Was it a useful session? Yes, as it taught us many things like how to budget and how you can...

not get into debt and how to equally spend your money, like when you grow older, get into uni and everything. Very wise words. And Molly, why do you think it's important to learn about money and budgeting? I think it's important to learn about it because when you get older and you have the responsibilities, like with your money, like to pay your mortgage, you need to learn the right balance on what you really need and what is just not really a necessity.

That was a really interesting point in that session, wasn't it? The difference between what you want and what you need. I agree, because when you really think about it... Things like haircuts and, like, phones, you don't really need it in your everyday life. But, like, things like paying your rent or your mortgage, you really need them for your life. Very sensible head there. Maranata, what kind of things do you want to know about...

Money and personal finance. Personally, me, when I grow older, I want to move out. So I would like to know about finance and how you can budget and know how you can spend. your money sensibly and not get into debt. Yes, sensible spending. We all need that. Molly, I know your principal is sitting right next to us, but be as truthful as you can. Was it interesting?

I find that it really was interesting because I got to see what it was like when I'm going to be older and I got to see all the different things that you have to really spend your money on and that it's really difficult to learn how to spend it all sensibly. Oh, thank you. And Marlotta, did you enjoy it as well? Yeah. Yeah, it was fun. I think some of those expenses took you by surprise a bit, didn't they? The outrage at the idea of council tax was one. Like, what, every month? Every month?

So, yeah, it was very useful. Anna, do you think your students, your teenagers, care more about learning these skills now because they've seen their parents going through the rising cost of living, dealing with their own bills? I think so, definitely. There is a real acute awareness from our students about the cost of living crisis and they've seen their own parents struggling sometimes and they've seen the cost of things that they buy going up as well. So yes, I think there's a real...

want to understand finance and to leave with the skills that they need to make sensible decisions and has that been one of the reasons that you've perhaps prioritized putting this money education into your school day yes well we we take that part of our personal social and health education really seriously we we call it personal social health social health and economic education so we've put that in all the way through to try and ensure that

we prioritize that. If we're trying to help our young people consider their well-being, financial literacy and economic well-being is a huge part of that and shouldn't be ignored. So we do prioritize that for that reason. Stephanie?

You were talking about some of the other subjects that you'll cover with students and you mentioned pensions. Now, I find it hard to get some people in their 30s to think about pensions. Is it really something that goes in when you're a teen?

Yeah, I think it is. Like I said, I think, you know, they hear other people talking about it. Maybe no one's ever explained it to them before. We do things like quizzes and things as well, where we try and get them to pitch themselves in their retirement and really bring home that it's a long time away, but it's still you.

Also, retirement's a long way away, but when they have to start making decisions about their pension, like when auto-enrolment kicks in, that's actually only in a few years. So it's really relevant, and I think they get that. Bobby, I don't know what you're going to think of this message we've had from Adrian. Adrian says, there's little point with many kids learning quadratics, etc, as they won't need it. It would be better to do more financial learning.

Oh, you've got to look. I know, I gave the teacher a look. I think in an ideal world, we can balance the beauty and the practicality of mathematics. But you think they both matter? I think they both, again, we learn literature, we learn music, because there's a lot of knowledge in human civilisation that's worth learning. Stephanie, what's the best age to start trying to teach kids about money?

I think start as early as you can, really. You know, I have a four-year-old. We talk about money when we go shopping and whether, you know, we can afford for her to have a toy that day or not. She gets birthday money and that sort of thing. And really it's a lifelong thing, you know.

it also doesn't stop once you've finished education we're all learning constantly aren't we and we all have financial capability needs ongoing so um yeah really early we definitely want to see it in the primary curriculum as well as the secondary curriculum

But just like any kind of education, it shouldn't start or stop, you know, at any particular point. It should just be constantly building. Do you think something that holds some young people back from understanding it better is how much their parents actually understand it?

whether they have these financial skills. I think so, yeah. And also talking about money is still quite a taboo. You know, people don't want to talk about how much they earn. They feel uncomfortable. They don't want to worry their children. You know, as parents, we want to protect our children, don't we? So there's all of that.

but I would just encourage parents to even if you feel a bit uncomfortable share that because what we don't want is young people growing up feeling like you either know about money or you don't know about money actually when I deliver workshops I talk about how I feel uncomfortable about some things

something scare me how I don't know about others and that's okay and it's about having the confidence to research and ask questions thank you right we've heard what great work the teachers the charities are doing here

One question is, is school the right place to learn these skills? And our reporter, Tamsin Craftman, has been out in Leeds asking exactly that. It should be the parents if they knew anything about it. Why the parents? It's their children. They should set their standards. I learnt from my dad. Trouble is...

Few parents have than else to do it these days, unfortunately. Why not teachers? School isn't for teaching that. It should be done far before school. Money is too important to be left to school. It's got to be done by the parents. by example it's a regular everyday thing it's not monday to friday it's not term time it's like cleaning your teeth you do it morning and night and it's in the home and that's where you learn teachers because

Some teenagers, they don't want to listen to their parents, you know. They will be more respectful to their teachers. And what should teachers be teaching them? How to save money, how to earn money in a low risk. way the big ones teenagers they can't recognize if this is risky i think it's the parents that should teach them with the responsible parents some parents expect the teachers to do it but probably a big mix of both really why do you not think that teachers should do it

Don't you think they've got enough to do, teachers? They're busy enough with the curriculum, aren't they? I can see Anna, the principal, laughing at that. Bobby, you see both sides of this. What do you think? Are teachers...

Are they even equipped to deliver this kind of class? So I would say is that... teachers and parents they should be seen as like a working in tandem a tag team they can reinforce each other's messages be a virtual cycle because then students see at school at home people singing from the same financial hymn sheet but with teachers even like

teacher i've got friends who are master teachers for many years and they themselves are not super comfortable about personal finance so actually you might be a great teacher but teaching about personal finance is a different skill set Thank you. The Money and Pension Service is working with partners to increase the number of children who do get financial education. It's going to increase it by 2 million to reach 6.8 million by 2030. Stephanie, that's a lot, isn't it? What needs doing?

I think, first of all, just really shouting about financial education, getting people more comfortable talking about money, teachers and parents. Also, we would argue that it needs to be in the PSHE, the personal social health curriculum.

it needs to be statutory we know that less than half of young people are receiving a meaningful financial education now and if it's statutory and all schools have to teach it then hopefully they will and also that would mean that it has a home at the moment it sits across maths and citizenship which

means no particular teacher is responsible for it you can see there's going to be lots of challenges with that if it has a home then someone's responsible for it organizations like us know who to contact to help them and and they have that responsibility Anna, the government's Maths to 18 programme was announced last year. It's worth over £100 million and it means all children in England will study maths to age 18. Is that going to be enough to arm them with better money skills?

Well, I've got a lot of questions about how making maths teaching to 18 will actually happen. But if it is going to happen, then I think ensuring that that curriculum is... as applicable as possible to young people and the life they're going to lead will make it really worthwhile otherwise it will just feel like a further extension of the the maths that they've done up to 16 if that can be something that

helps them to see real world maths, which actually has an impact on their life, then it could be really successful. How that's actually implemented is another question. So money maths, finances. Absolutely. Many maths and maths that will equip them with the skills to be really successful in their lives. Now, you have a lot to do already to teach these students. You've got to get them through their exams. You've got to make sure they do sport, the personal and social education, all the extra.

curricular clubs that you do, do schools like yours actually have time to teach finances as well? Well, we do, and we do take it really seriously. I think you have to prioritise it within your curriculum. Our students have economic education that starts in Year 7. We work very much in partnership with the work that we do in maths lessons with the money charity.

when you prioritize it, there is enough time. What I would like to see is a heavier focus through the actual GCSE curriculum on financial maths rather than just them doing some of their maths in a money context. But that would need to see a change.

in the curriculum for us to prioritize that. Stephanie, one of the people there in Leeds mentioned Bitcoin. And it is true, isn't it? A lot of teenagers, they're learning a lot from TikTok, from YouTube, from other social media. Is there a danger that it's riskier financial lessons from influencers that they're seeing that are just a bit more exciting than anything you can really get in the classroom? Yeah, and we always get questions about bitcoins and investing in things.

basically always young people wanting to know how they can get rich quick which i mean we all want to know don't we if i knew yeah yeah um so yeah there is a danger you know and so Part of what we need to teach young people is about trusting the source and, you know, knowing that who you're talking to knows what they're talking about and that most things like this that involve risk and you need to be aware of that. And Bobby, I know you feel very strongly about this too.

Yes, again, social media, TikTok, great way for young people to learn information, but we need to make sure that they're learning the right information. Absolutely. Well, that is nearly all we've got time for. is for me and not for you that is the end of our day though with Trinity Academy Cathedral School in Wakefield thank you very very much for having us thank you of course to Anna Galinda the principal for welcoming us thank you to Stephanie Fitzgerald

Head of Young People Programmes at the Money Charity. And thank you to the students, Molly and Maranatha, who joined us earlier on. Bobby Siegel, of course, you've been my co-presenter today. Now, you set us a maths challenge earlier. Obviously, I've worked out the answer. Of course. But for everybody else, just remind us what the question was and tell us.

what the answer is. So you had £10,000 in savings, 5% interest rate paid annually at the end of each year, and how many years would it take for the £10,000 to double to £20k? And the answer, of course, was by the end of the 15th year. By the end of the 15th year, lots of people actually got that right. Jeremy, Dave, Chris, Claudia, Brian, Mark, Claire, Susan, and quite a few others. This is for you from all of the pupils here.

That is actually the cast of the school performance of Matilda, which opens tonight and which definitely has the energy. And I'll tell you what, Bobby, we will tweet a longer answer to that problem so that you can show your workings a bit.

Absolutely. Now, whatever the schools are doing, Bobby, what is it that parents should do? Because parents, I know, they'll want their children to be learning this stuff. Set those parents some homework. Finally a chance. Okay. Mr. Segal's advice for parents is...

for parents to have one conversation each week about money with their children. So just that one conversation. One conversation. And what kind of thing? So it could be simple as if they're going to the shops or if they're going to the bank or they're planning on buying a console. Just have a question with the child. So like, ah, do you know how much this costs?

how long it would take me to earn that, to buy that. So they become more aware that things take time to earn money for. And I know one thing that came up in the session earlier was that a lot of parents don't talk to their kids about money. Maybe want to protect their children from those conversations.

but it helps. Yeah, and I understand parents, uncles, aunties, they want to protect their children from the world, but actually introducing them to money is actually a really responsible thing to do. Thank you. You can listen back to this programme on BBC Sounds in just a couple of hours. Our own headteacher...

Paul Lewis is back with Moneybox at midday on Saturday. He's been on a day trip to the Bank of England. If you want to contact him, me or the team, it's moneybox at bbc.co.uk. I'm off to join the Creative Writing After School Club. Have a good afternoon. Hello, it's Amol Rajan here. And it's Nick Robinson, and we want to tell you about the Today podcast from BBC Radio 4.

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