Warden Park School, Cuckfield, West Sussex
Winner, 2008
School award for most innovative approach to PFE
Miss Christine Mingay, a new member of staff at Warden Park School, an 11-16 comprehensive school in West Sussex, recognised a particular need to focus on personal finance education and decided to introduce and run a whole-school financial literacy week that turned out to be a huge success for both students and teachers.
During financial literacy week at Warden Park, maths lessons across the school focused on personal finance issues:
- students in year 7 investigated the cost of buying mobile phones by comparing different tariffs and deciding which would be most cost-effective
- year 8 looked at booking a holiday and the factors that effect pricing such as season and star rating
- year 9s and year 11s took part in stock market challenges to learn about the factors affecting share values and the risk of investing in shares.
- Students in year 10 looked into the realities of leaving home and starting work. They investigated salaries for various jobs and then looked into the outgoings that would have to be met from that income such as rent, utility bills and food. They also considered the cost of buying items on credit.
In one financial literacy week activity students from Year 11 took part in ‘Teacherdaq‘, where they were given an imaginary £100 to spend on shares in members of staff at the school. Over ten days the share prices of each teacher fluctuated according to factors such as ‘The Fire Alarm goes off and some hunky firemen come to the school. Female shares rise!’, ‘Mr Thomas wins money on a scratch card‘ and ‘Strong winds cause many bad hair days‘.
The school’s usual reward system for good work or good behaviour was replaced for the week with a specially designed currency featuring photos of the senior management team in place of the Queen.
Teachers were given a supply of the new currency with which to reward students during lessons. Students who earned the currency during the week used their newly acquired financial literacy skills to decide whether to bank their money each day and gain 5% interest, or to spend it in the ‘Assembly Hall Stores’ on goods donated by local companies. The student in each tutor group who had banked the most money during the week were rewarded with ‘real’ money.
“Financial literacy week was a huge success and generated a real ‘buzz’ throughout the school” Miss Christine Mingay
Warden Park School intends to run the week again next year and aims to develop the event by involving more departments in the delivery of cross-curricular PFE lessons during the week, demonstrating the longevity of the programme and Warden Park’s ongoing commitment to the teaching of PFE and to equipping their students with the skills to manage their money responsibly in the future.
Judges were particularly impressed by the involvement of senior management in this programme, its innovation and drive, and the way in which a new member of staff had made a great impact by being brave enough to introduce something new.
With financial literacy week, Miss Mingay managed to bring personal finance education to life for the students of Warden Park School, not only for her own classes, but for the whole school.
Miss Mingay is also the overall winner of the Teacher award. She was nominated by her colleague Sarah Brocklehurst, Specialist School Project Coordinator at Warden Park.
