We’re failing our children with financial education by postcode lottery. The subject finally found its way into the curriculum for secondary schools in England two years ago but if anyone thinks the job’s done, they couldn’t be more wrong.
It’s true that all English comprehensive schools now have to cover the subject within maths and citizenship classes – the devolved nations have been teaching it for years. But there’s no assessment and no mandatory teacher training. Free schools and academies don’t have to teach it either. It’s hardly a winning formula and means that while some schools are teaching the topic brilliantly, others do so abysmally. And there’s little to persuade the latter to do otherwise.
When schools and teachers have so many competing demands on their time from the likes of the Department for Education and Ofsted, it’s understandable that an un-assessed topic not even taught in its own right as an individual subject falls by the wayside.
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