How notes and coins are key to children learning budgeting skills
COUNTING coins is an essential building block for children getting to grips with maths – helping them to add and subtract. Money experts also believe it is vital for the development of key financial life skills such as budgeting and acting responsibly.
Netley Primary School in Camden, North London, is a ‘young enterprise financial centre of excellence’ – and uses cash as a learning tool. When I visit, a group of nine and ten-year-olds are in the playground role-playing as shoppers, clutching handfuls of plastic coins and notes.
Pupil Stina, ten, says: ‘You can budget if you have a box of cash but with a card you do not know how much money you have. This means that you can spend too much.’
Counting out the pennies required for buying a 10p plastic banana at the pop-up shop, Mursalin demonstrates that it is not just old people who can sometimes struggle with modern technology. The ten-year-old says: ‘What happens if you forget your PIN? You won’t be able to buy anything. Or if the computer stops working? Cash is something real that works whatever happens.’
Nine-year-old Kron Selmani admits he will struggle to save enough to buy the latest iPhone 11 – currently changing hands for £730 – from the £5 a week he gets for helping with home chores. But he says: ‘I put the pocket money into a clear plastic folder where I can see it with my own eyes. It
motivates me to save up more and not just spend.’
Deputy head Gareth Morris is proud of the way his pupils have grasped the importance of financial planning with coins and notes. He says: ‘Maths can seem so much more relevant if you use it in real life situations, such as dealing with money, making it fun and easier to learn.’
It is not only children who can benefit from using coins and notes to improve their maths skills. One in three adults cannot work out the correct change when shopping, according to University College London Institute of Education and University of Cambridge research.
Professor John Jerrim, coauthor of the study, says: ‘We are facing a crisis in financial literary skills. It is important to be able to conduct financial calculations in order to make rational well-informed decisions. Without this you will struggle with basic financial tasks, such as working out how to buy a house or saving into a pension.’ He points out that it also explains why many people might be vulnerable to taking out highinterest loans that can cause misery in their lives.
Russell Winnard, director at charity Young Enterprise, says: ‘Coins and banknotes are an essential part of learning for everyone. Without cash, children fail to learn about budgeting and can struggle with maths during the early years of their education. Getting rid of cash would be a disaster for society.’ He says preschool children shopping with their parents often get the wrong idea of values in a supermarket if payments are made with a card or using the internet instead of money out of a wallet or purse – especially if receiving cashback.
Winnard says: ‘To a child’s eyes it can look like the shop is paying you to take away goods. This is a dangerous message – and it is vital they role-play using real money to understand its value.’