George Tsounias explains how My Personal Finance Skills is delivering free financial education to students
The My Personal Finance Skills initiative delivers free financial education workshops to schools and colleges across the UK through a network of more than 800 PFS members (Education Champions) who are committed to giving something back to the local communities they serve.
So far this academic year, more than 300 workshops have been delivered to schools and colleges across the UK with a total of 500 plus workshops reaching an estimated 15,000 students expected before the end of the summer holidays.
“Thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The students were really interactive, and interested and engaged in the topic” - Tilly Quigley, Education Champion
Financial workshops
Our financial education material is aimed at students aged 15-18 and workshops have been designed to fit within a typical one-hour school timetabled lesson.
Resources will enable Education Champions to deliver standalone workshops aimed at raising the financial competency of students. The content has been created in collaboration with Young Money, a trusted knowledge provider, supporting schools and colleges for more than 15 years.
The themes covered in the first series of workshops include:
Moving on from school – student finance, earning, tax, NI, pensions.
My future finances – enabling students to develop their understanding of the value of everyday expenditure.
Making decisions and risk – students gain an understanding of their attitude to risk and how this can influence financial choices they make.
Staying safe – identifying financial scams.
“As a form tutor to year 12s last year and this year, I can honestly say it is one of the best PSHE lessons from a visitor we had” - Teacher
Stepping into the classroom
We understand that many members are passionate about giving back but can be nervous of stepping into the classroom for the first time. For this reason, we support you from the registration all
the way through to the delivery of your first workshop.
As well as access to presentation guides and presentation slides, we have a series of training webinars that take you through each stage of a workshop. Furthermore, all Education Champions go through our simple financial education sign-off process prior to delivering their first workshop to ensure that they are confident with the material and have completed some simple yet important tasks. Finally, the My Personal Finance Skills team is on hand throughout the process to provide any additional support.
The PFS is committed to helping students have better financial awareness and providing support to teachers who are passionate about students’ understanding of money and are looking for free external support from professionals. Thanks to the success of the initial series of financial education workshops, we are working to develop new workshops and talks in 2020.
If you are interested in taking part or know of any schools that would be interested, contact: volunteers@thepfs.org
George Tsounias is relationship manager of education at the PFS
