Financial expert goes back to basics to teach ‘short-changed’ schoolchildren about money
PUBLISHED: 05:45 10 March 2020 | UPDATED: 10:08 10 March 2020
A Suffolk-based financial high-flier has launched a classroom aid to tackle the growing “epidemic of debt” which she fears has gripped the nation.
Ex-City fund manager Helen Driver launched Moneyready to help children to understand money matters better as she felt they were being short-changed on their financial education.
The Woodbridge-based mother of teenagers and stock market investor has previously delivered financial education workshops in schools and for the BBC Breakfast business team and has a 20 year career in finance.
Financial literacy has been a mandatory part of the secondary school curriculum for the last six years, with schools required to teach children about budgeting and public spending.
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But recent research by the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF) found 69% of students polled regularly worry about money and 82% claimed they do not learn enough about money in school.
The study inspired the finance whizz to launch Moneyready - an e-learning platform which uses a series of interactive games, lessons and quizzes to teach children on a range of finance-related subjects.
'Most schools deliver some kind of finance education, but research suggests teachers have little faith in its quality and are held back by insufficient time, resources and support,' she explained.
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'As a result, access to financial education is erratic and irregular and many schools are still struggling to do it well.
'Meanwhile, young adults are recognising the need to understand more about things like savings, loans, mortgages, interest rates, pension schemes and credit cards and parents are desperate for help to arm children with the financial acumen they need to deal with the responsibilities of being an adult.'
The cloud-based platform is pitched at three progressively more complex levels aimed at seven to 11, 11 to 14 and 14 to 18-year-olds.
'We already know children respond well to learning through technology,' said Ms Driver.
The platform - created using Suffolk-based developers and designers - can be accessed by a single subscription.
'Fundamentally managing money is a life skill that everybody needs. It doesn't matter whether you are the brightest kid or struggle, or whether you have a lot of money or little money,' she said.
'We know that schools want to do the best for young students, and I want to help them do that - as well as adhere to the curriculum.'