Giving something back to the local community is core to FPC’s values and having the chance to help young people to understand money at the same time always presents an opportunity that the team at FPC can’t resist.
Over the last two months, FPC superstars, Helen Thomas and Hayley Wake have held several financial education workshops aimed at 16-18 year old pupils at two local schools, Christ the King Catholic High School and Sixth Form Centre in Southport and Formby High School.
Helen is one of the Personal Finance Society’s (PFS) ‘Education Champions’, a network of professional members who are committed to giving something back to their communities. The workshops are based on their ‘My Personal Finance Skills’ initiative, a collaboration with ‘Young Money’, a trusted financial education provider, supporting schools, colleges and universities for over 15 years.
During the workshops, Helen and Hayley covered a breath of subjects such as understanding pay slips and deductions, to more complex matters such as loans, mortgages and other types of debt, finance and interest.
Helen commented: “It’s great to see students getting involved in financial planning and helping them gain ‘life skills’ like understanding their pay-slips and the impact of interest on debts. We’ve had some great feedback too, with students saying that they feel more confident in their finances now.
We had planned to deliver workshops during 2020 but were forced to put our plans on hold due to the Covid pandemic, so when two local schools asked us to deliver financial planning workshops to their Year 12s and 13s, we were more than happy to help.”
Helen and Hayley have both had excellent feedback from the schools too. Teacher at Formby High School, Jordan Nixon commented: “FPC’s presentation of personal finance topics to our Year 12 students was a breath of fresh air. Over the course of three sessions the students developed their knowledge of personal loans, mortgages, student finance and overall understanding of credit. Each session was delivered exceptionally, using tasks and vocabulary that all students could access. Having spoken to students following the sessions, they all felt more at ease with the financial aspect of university and I believe that this would have encouraged more students to apply when the time comes next year.
Helen and Hayley built up a strong relationship with the students and all students felt comfortable asking questions and providing answers to the tasks that they completed. I will definitely be working with them again in the future and we are currently discussing the opportunity of bringing the FPC team in again to discuss personal finance with our key stage 3 and key stage 4 students at some point in the early stages of the next academic year.”
Christ the King Sixth Form Centre commented: “Thank you to FPC! The ‘Moving on from Sixth Form’ workshop was thoroughly enjoyed by our Year 13 students.”
FPC has been working with local schools for the last four years and is keen to continue to provide educational sessions to young local people, with further sessions planed for Year 9 and 10 in the next few months so watch this space…
