Institute of Education helps teach money matters

Thursday, 27 June 2013

pfeg filming with the Institute of Education for the creation of national training materials for trainee teachers

The mathematics team at the Institute of Education (IoE) has recently been involved in a national project to help primary school teachers equip their pupils with the skills, knowledge and confidence to manage money.

They are one of 12 Higher Education institutions who have contributed to the ‘What Money Means' project, that has been designed by financial education charity pfeg (Personal Finance Education Group). The project provides training and resources to help teachers integrate learning about money, including savings, insurance and budgeting, into a variety of subjects, and specifically targets those who are training to be teachers.

One element of the project focuses on the opportunity that finance education offers to the learning of mathematics. pfeg's consultant, Alison Terry, has been working closely with Catherine Foley and Nasreen Majid from IoE to develop training materials for students on the PGCE and BA Ed courses that will aid them in their teaching of maths using the concept of money.

This collaboration culminated in a day of filming at the Institute of Education this month, involving a taught session with third year undergraduate students, followed by interviews with the students to capture their initial thoughts about teaching personal finance in school. Nasreen and Catherine were also interviewed, along with some PGCE students who had brought in examples of the work they have carried out in schools.

The footage from the day is being used by pfeg to exemplify good practice and will form part of a nationally available suite of training materials available on http://www.pfeg.org to other higher education initial teaching training providers who are planning to introduce ‘financial capability' into their own students' training.