Deadline for entries is Friday, 30th April.

The judges were impressed by this programme’s imaginative approach and the inclusion of student evaluation.

In Year 7 a Finance morning is run using a range of teaching materials, during which groups work with an employee volunteer from a financial organisation. These activities are then reinforced in the following four Business and ICT lessons, and a budgeting module is delivered during Maths lessons.

Holyhead also runs a Stock Market Challenge in the summer term, the winners of which go on to represent the school and compete against other schools in a Stock Market Challenge Day, hosted by Holyhead.

As the students progress through the school years, they take part in various engaging and relevant financial activities. For instance, the School Bank is run by Year 11 students who were recruited in Year 9, who then go on to recruit and train their replacements.

This was a thoroughly integrated and holistic whole-school approach to PFE that really impressed the judges.

The judges were impressed that this approach was fun and engaging for students, while maintaining strong curriculum links.

A key feature of the programme was a focus on group discussion, and on making financial decisions together, in order to simulate situations such as shared accommodation in the future. It also addressed other relevant themes such as local employment, housing, careers, numeracy and citizenship.

This programme impressed the judges with its clear objectives, and they also commented that it demonstrated a comprehensive, aspirational and relevant approach PFE.

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.

Judges particularly noted Ms Pearson’s use of good management practice as it was recognised that this is not always easy to deliver.