SAVVY

OUR MONEY, OUR FUTURE

FOREWORD

GET MONEY

ur Money, our Future is an important publication that will help all young people across the country campaign for high quality Personal Finance Education (PFE) to be taught in their schools. Young people need to know how they can manage their money as they enter adulthood, as teenagers we spend wisely and also save for college or university. Young NCB want young people to use this toolkit to help them campaign for high quality PFE in their schools and help them gain both confidence and other useful skills, such as teamwork, from using the toolkit.
Jhon Bateman and Teri-Ann Watson, Young NCB PFE Advisors

elcome to Our Money, Our Future. This toolkit has everything you need to campaign for Personal Finance Education (PFE) to be taught in your school. Written by young people for young people, Our Money, Our Future

SAVVY
OUR MONEY, OUR FUTURE
FOREWORD

GET MONEY

speaks your language

You will need to make decisions about money every day of your life,
learning money management skills at school will put you head and shoulders above the rest to listen

that will is an important publication ur Money, our Future for high across the country campaign help all young people taught in their Education (PFE) to be quality Personal Finance can manage their need to know how they schools. Young people we spend wisely adulthood, as teenagers money as they enter Young NCB want young for college or university. and also save for high quality to help them campaign people to use this toolkit confidence and help them gain both and PFE in their schools the toolkit. as teamwork, from using other useful skills, such
Jhon Bateman and Teri-Ann Watson, Young NCB PFE Advisors

Campaigning is easy, all you need is a plan, some friends and a teacher

WHAT IS PFE?
PERSONAL about you/your life FINANCE money, loans, credit & debit cards, banks, interest rates etc EDUCATION being taught new skills and given the knowledge to make the right decisions in life High quality PFE gives young people the confidence, skills and knowledge to manage their money. If you want to learn more about what PFE is and how it can be taught in schools please see the More Information download. When we talk about managing money we mean how to save money, choose a bank account and make your money work for you. Being taught high quality PFE can be lifechanging. You will learn knowledge and skills that will help you throughout your life, such as:

How will you pay for your mobile phone

bill?

Which bank will you open an account with? What type of bank account will be best for
you?

Will you go on to further education and how

will this be paid for? So if you agree that PFE is really important but youre not being taught it in a way thats useful to you, you can do something about it. You can bring about change.

So, how can you campaign for high quality PFE?

Here is a step by step guide to help you plan. For more information about campaigning please see the More Information download.
What does campaigning mea n?

An organised course of action to achieve a goal

Oxford dictionary definition of

campaign

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the Young NCB PFE Advisory Group for their contribution to this publication; Jhon Bateman, Benjamin Farnes, Kadeem Graha m, Rakhee Haria, Kiran Iqbal, Mariyam Iqbal, Ishwar Mair, Rishika Mair, Shivan i Patel, Jamie Watson, Teri-Ann Watson, and Bilaal Yusaf.

SUCCESS
1 Set up a campaign group 2 What do you want to achieve? 3 Who to influence? 4 How can you get support for your campaign? 5 Create an action plan 6 Take action 7 Review barriers and how they may be overcome

7 STEPS TO

1
STEP

CAMPAIGN
I

SET UP A

GROUP

ts difficult to change the world by yourself so get friends and other pupils at your school to join your campaign group.

Get a group of pupils at your school together to form a campaign group. This will help give your campaign strength and ensure you are able to carry out all the activities that you plan. You will want group members to be good at different things. You may want to assign each member a specific role:

GOOD COMMUNICATORS could be

responsible for meeting teachers in your school who make the decisions about what is taught or presentations plan

GOOD WRITERS could write letters, leaflets GOOD ORGANISERS could write the action
Being part of the campaign will give you the opportunity to improve your team work, communication and persuasion skills, all of which will look great on your CV and college applications! Look for a champion in your school to help support your campaign. This could be your form tutor, PSHE teacher or an adult in the school that you know thinks PFE is important too. They could help by identifying who makes the decisions in your school, encouraging teachers to meet with you or finding you a space for your campaign group to meet at lunchtimes of after school.

DID YOU KNOW?

TOP TIP Be friendly!

of young people asked said they do not think that school teaches them enough about how to manage their money

84%

2
STEP

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO

ACHIEVE?

clear goal is important because it will help you focus on what needs to be done and measure the success of your campaign.

You must decide what it is that you want to ultimately achieve. It should be something broad that you can summarise in a short statement

You may want your school to take part in

My Money Week every year week to all pupils

Teach at least one hour of dedicated PFE a Have a PFE lunchtime session once a term.
Having this clear goal in mind at all times will help you plan your campaign and keep it on track. In your campaign group its good to come up with goals that are SMART.

SPECIFIC e.g. we want our school to take

part in My Money Week each year

MEASURABLE e.g. we will succeed if our

school runs some activities and lessons during My Money Week

ATTAINABLE e.g. in the last week of June,

when My Money Week takes place, the school is not as busy as usual so we think there will be time to take part in My Money Week PFE and give us some lessons on how to manage our money

DID YOU KNOW?

RELEVANT e.g. this will help us promote TIMELY e.g. we have until June to

influence other students and our teachers

of young people agree d that teaching children and young pe ople about managing their mone y was the responsibility of scho ol

94%

In a Young NCB surv

ey

3
STEP

INFLUENCE?
ind out who the decision makers are in your school and the people who can influence the decisions they make.

WHO TO

THEY COULD BE:

SCHOOL GOVERNORS HEAD TEACHER HEAD OF YEAR THE SCHOOL COUNCIL OR HOUSE

LEADERS they will already have ways of communicating with decision makers so they could help you reach them.

You need to speak to the people at your school who decide their own curriculum (programme of what is taught) so you need to speak to the people at your school who decide what pupils will learn. Your champion can help you find out who they are. Think about ways you could appeal to the decision makers and what information you will need to give them so that they will support your campaign. Your champion can help you find out who the decision makers are. When considering who to approach, think about the following:

Who has the power to make decisions &

bring about change? makers?

DID YOU KNOW? In a Young NCB survey

Who can help you influence the decision

of young people agreed that teaching secondary school pupils about managing their money & finances should be compulsory and part of the school curriculum

93%

4
STEP

GET SUPPORT
FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN?

HOW CAN YOU

ou will need to come up with creative ways to get support from other students as well as ways to influence teachers. DOWNLOAD THE TEACHER INFORMATION

HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS:

DELIVER AN ASSEMBLY to encourage

other pupils to support your campaign e.g. you could use the case study download to present the way some other young people have campaigned for PFE the media could bring attention to your campaign champion to help you invite local banks/ businesses to take part in your lessons to highlight the importance of PFE and how it affects everyone YOUTH PARLIAMENTS/YOUNG MAYORS to get support and tips on campaigning and help spread the word to other schools

which will inform them on the lessons plans and resources available from pfeg for free (theyd hardly have to do any work at all!) for a face-to-face meeting to talk about your campaign and why PFE is important ASSOCIATION OR YOUR SCHOOL GOVERNORS (a group made up of parents & teachers that discuss issues at your school) BOX, fill it up with demands for PFE etc. encourage others to sign the Get Money Savvy online petition www.gopetition. com/petitions/get-money-savvy.html

WRITE TO YOUR HEAD TEACHER and ask ASK TO MEET THE PARENT TEACHERS

WRITE TO A LOCAL NEWSPAPER ARRANGE A PFE EVENT ask your

IF YOUR SCHOOL HAS A SUGGESTION

TALK TO LOCAL YOUTH COUNCILS/

GET A PETITION GOING Make sure you

TOP TIP Use the facts and fig ures we have given you. People ca nt argue with facts!

The more creative the idea, the better so get thinking!

TOP TIP If something is not working, be prepared to try new things

young people asked ha ve owed money that they couldnt aff ord to pay back

1 in 10

DID YOU KNOW?

5
STEP

ACTION PLAN
se the action plan template included in the More Information download to help you decide and plan what you are going to do, when and how you are going to do it. YOU WILL NEED TO BREAK DOWN YOUR
CAMPAIGN AIM INTO THE SMALLER THINGS YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE. These are the things that will help you to achieve your overall campaign aim. You should try to make each of your objectives SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely).

CREATE AN

Now that you know you want to take action to make a change in your school, you need an action plan. The action plan will ensure that you know what you want to achieve and the actions that you need to take to succeed. There are some Action Plan templates included in The More Information download to help you.

WHAT WILL YOU NEED TO HELP YOU?

e.g. access to a computer to write your presentation, a room to meet with your campaign group

USE OUR SECOND ACTION PLAN TO

WHO CAN YOU APPROACH TO HELP? It is

always easier to campaign in a school if you have people on side (like a form tutor, head of house or school council) who can help you plan your campaign and help to arrange meetings with the people who make the decisions at your school.

HELP BREAK BIG TASKS DOWN e.g. if you have a meeting with your head teacher practice what you are going to say. To make your argument strong include statistics to back up what you are saying. The tasks should be as specific as possible, and should include details of how they are going to be done. Plan for success and make some noise about everything you have achieved you might inspire other schools to campaign too!

HOW WILL YOU CELEBRATE SUCCESS?

TOP TIP at the start of Plan your campaign mpaign isnt a term so that your ca s broken up by holiday
DID YOU KNOW?

TOP TIP Avoid running your campaign while exams are going on

of young people said that they taught thought every pupil should be in school about managing money

96%

6
STEP

ACTION

TAKE

ow that you have an action plan with tasks for your various campaign team members, its time to get going with your campaign.

You may then want to divide your campaign into different stages. Often, your objectives will follow on from each other in a logical sequence so it will be quite clear in what order you should do things. But if not, look at what are the simple, easy things to do, start with those and build-up from there. Find out how the schools curriculum is decided and by who for the next year and use this information to plan when to take action.

Arrange regular meetings with your campaign group so that you can record your progress. You may find that some actions are successful whilst others may need to be changed slightly. The better the communication between your team, the quicker things will move!

DID YOU KNOW? In a Young NCB survey

TOP TIP an and keep the pl Stay motivated moving

of young people wanted more information on saving for the future.

78%

7
STEP

REVIEW AND HOW THEY MAY BE OVERCOME

BARRIERS

barrier is an obstacle that could prevent your campaign from being successful in achieving your goal. We have thought about what barriers young people might face from different groups in their school when they are campaigning for PFE, and have come up with some solutions. If you can come up with solutions to the barriers in advance, you could change their minds!

BARRIER: Other pupils do not seem keen SOLUTION: Do an assembly demonstrating how important PFE is Highlight that lessons can be interactive e.g. using debate and discussion to learn Ask other pupils what they want to know about managing their money to make lessons relevant and interesting BARRIER: Teachers dont want to teach it SOLUTION: Take a copy of the My Money teachers kits which have lesson plans Invite local banks and business to cover some of the PFE topics

BARRIER: You are anxious about approaching teachers SOLUTION: Go in a group to visit your teacher/head teacher Plan and prepare for your meeting, practicing what you will say Ask parents/carers to help you prepare BARRIER: Young people are told its their parents/carers responsibility to teach PFE SOLUTION: Teachers have access to all the information as well as the resources to teach with Teachers have the skills to teach

It is easier to ensure that all young people receive the same high quality PFE if taught in schools Use the survey by M&S Money in your presentation/ leaflet that found that some 14 - 18 year olds are given no help on basic money matters by their parents. 19% of parents have never discussed how to spend money with their teenagers, and 32% have yet to discuss how to budget or even describe what one is. Change your action if you need to and dont give up!

DID YOU KNOW?

TOP TIP Present a solution for every problem

of young people said they had not received PFE at school

36%

In a Young NCB survey

DOWNLOADS
More Information
This download includes the action plan templates and other useful information to kick start your campaign.

Teacher Information
Take this download along with you when you speak to your teacher, it includes information about My Money Week, free PFE teaching resources and lesson plans.

Arun Youth Council Case Study

See how another group of young people successfully campaigned for PFE in their area. This information may help you when approaching teachers or if you do a presentation in assembly. These downloads can be accessed at www.youngncb.org.uk/what_were_up_to/resources.aspx

NOTES

National Childrens Bureau www.ncb.org.uk www.youngncb.org.uk

www.pfeg.org