Over three fun sessions a year 8 class of 30 pupils at The Dukes’ Middle School, Alnwick were given the opportunity to become bankers, economists and finance managers through Five Lamps’ MyBnk Project
The first session gave the pupils a chance to find out the history of money, the different currencies around the world, how economists work out the value of money in each country and how to convert the currencies into the Great British Pound.
The second session then moved on to where we get money from, the age you can start employment and the minimum -wage. The session also helped the students identify their needs and wants and how to budget money.
They were then put to test to see what they had learnt by helping a case study of a young gentleman in London budget his money. All students had managed to identify the young gentleman’s needs and wants and create a budget to save him some money.
The third session was aimed to pull all of their skills together from the previous sessions and become bankers. Each group learnt about what makes a good bank, ethical banking and interest rates (AER & APR). They then created their own banks. After the banks had been created each group presented to the whole class their ideas for their bank in a ‘dragons den’ format. The creative presentations by the students included; dancing, singing and rapping.
Feedback from the students included:
Emily aged 13 -”I thought it was really good and helpful towards my spending. I have also learnt about the policy banks obey”
Hannah aged 13 – “I learned a lot about what we used to do before money and had fun! I now know what to do in order to save”
Hannon aged 13 – “It was great fun! It has helped a lot with my understanding of money”
Two teachers who observed the sessions agreed that the programme is very valuable for young people and that the MyBnk trainer(s) were very effective in engaging the young people.
Miss Adair stated:
“The session was very engaging and actually put information in a simple way that I could understand too”