Teaching personal finance at a London school

I have done some volunteer work at two different schools in the past 2 months: some painting work at a primary school and some teaching at a secondary school. The experience at the secondary school has been an eye-opener for me.

I am at a secondary school today to teach some students about personal finances. The school is located in one of the most disadvantaged community in London. The students are generally from low-income family and it is unlikely that their parents know much about personal finance (in fact, one student told me that his uncle has just gone bankrupted and he asked me what does that mean!)

The students are around 15-16 years old and it was definitely not an easy group of people to deal with. Luckily, the class is actually very well planned out and we are given notes and handouts for each session. Each session consists of some brainstorming, some case study and a game.

At the beginning, we asked the students what they would do if they have moved out of home and earn a gross salary of 12,000 pounds. One particular student put down 'buy a BMW for 6,000 pounds' straight away! :-) it is also surprising how many people actually ignore items such as bills, rent, food, transport!

Later in the session, each student is given spending profiles of fictitious characters, each with 1-2 incomes and 4-5 expenditures. The students had to work out how much each character can save at the end of each month. It doesn't seem to be too complicated but most students struggled. A few actually declared the maths is too hard and gave up. I sincerely hope those student will be able to make ends meet when they finish school and come into the real world.

There are certainly behavioural problems all around the class (there were 3-4 students who refused to do anything). Overall, the teacher manages the student very well. (I think the teacher is very dedicated. She told me that she has been class teacher for this group of students since year 7 and her students have been her pride and joy. It is certainly not an easy job being a teacher in such an environment!) AND this particular school is supposed to be the best in the borough. I dread to think what it is like in other school. (there are security guards in the corridors during recess just to watch the students. Isn't this scary?!)