RedSTART

The impact of equipping young people with the skills and confidence to manage their money in later life cannot be underestimated.

Introducing RedSTART

Our national charity partner, RedSTART, takes access to education very seriously.

Their Change the Game programme is teaching primary school children from disadvantaged areas about money, with the aim of building strong evidence of the positive impact of early and ongoing financial education.

The charity’s findings will be used to inform public policy, and ultimately provide a scalable blueprint for the government to follow in primary schools.

RedSTART started the 2024/25 academic year with 92 member schools across seven regional hubs in the UK. This jumped from 45 schools and five hubs at the start of the previous academic year – a strong sign that primary schools are keen to get onboard with the initiative.

How we've been supporting RedSTART lately

Here’s how we supported RedSTART’s mission in 2024:

• We welcomed year six pupils from St Mary’s School into our Brighton office, helping to run a workshop about key money principles, including budgeting and saving, risk and reward, and lending and borrowing. Our Chief Financial Officer, Philippa Herz, ran a financial education game where the children risked their money to ‘beat the dealer’.
• A group from OneFamily took part in a second session with St Mary’s in November, this time with year five pupils. The children took part in different activities, including how to evaluate purchases they might need vs those they want. There was also a discussion about ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ schemes, where the children had to work out how much extra they’d pay if they paid in instalments, and think about why they might consider it or not consider it.
• Two colleagues headed to Northgate primary school, where they ran a fun activity around prioritisation and decision-making when buying goods.

“We are squandering the potential of millions of children year after year because we don’t equip them with the everyday life skills around money they need in adulthood,” said Sarah Marks, RedSTART Chief Executive.

“In doing so, we perpetuate a pernicious cycle of disadvantage. That cycle needs to be broken. Now.

“The impact that organisations like OneFamily have on our programme, whether through funding our work or volunteering at our workshops in schools, is huge.

“We are beginning to see statistically significant positive results from the largest randomised control study ever carried out on the impact of primary school financial education.

“Indeed, two of our 92 member schools have had Ofsted inspections and reports in the last six months that have recognised the positive contribution that the programme is making.”