Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

This is an incredibly important area. At the very start of the pandemic, we set up the regional education and children’s teams—REACT—which were a co-operation between schools, local government, the Department for Education and the police in order to target some of the youngsters who struggle the most and are most likely not to be in school. We continue to expand that work through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to help the families who struggle the most, and recognise that it is children in that category who are most vulnerable and possibly the most likely to have persistent absence from schools. We will continue to work across Government, recognising that it is not just about schools, but about local authorities, the police, health and social care coming together to bring children back into the classroom and to ensure that they are not missing out on school.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing financial education to children at primary school level.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is important that pupils are well prepared to manage their money, make sound financial decisions and know where to seek further information. Financial education forms part of the citizenship curriculum, which can be taught at all key stages but is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4.

[Alex Cunningham]

In 2013, the Money and Pensions Service found that our money habits and attitudes towards finance are formed by the age of seven. However, eight years later the Government have still not made financial education compulsory within the primary school curriculum. Does the Minister agree that teaching our children positive saving habits at a young age is vital to their financial futures, and that dormant assets from the savings and investment sector could fund initiatives such as KickStart Money to deliver primary financial education for all?

[Nick Gibb]

The priority at primary school must be to ensure that all children have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of arithmetic: that they can add, subtract, multiply and divide; that they know their times tables by heart; and that they can add, subtract and multiply fractions. In 2013, the Government introduced a new primary maths curriculum that includes ratio and proportions, that teaches pupils to use percentages and that introduces them to algebra. In year 2, pupils are introduced to the values of our coinage. That is all fundamental to being secure in handling finances and being taught financial education at key stage 3.