Children as young as five are to be taught how to manage their pocket money and personal finance to be ‘moneywise’ in later life as part of the curriculum.

Their school in London’s East End has been selected to join a nationwide financial education programme with a high street bank.

The teachers at Whitechapel’s Thomas Buxton Primary are being trained by a money specialist to be able to carry out personal financial education which is being built into the school’s curriculum, just like in secondary education.

“It’s important for the children to manage their money well throughout their lives,” headteacher Lorraine Flanagan said.

“These skills don’t come automatically—they need to be taught. It’s our responsibility to prepare them for adult life, so we believe embedding financial education into our curriculum is a necessity.”

The programme is a partnership between Young Enterprise financial education charity and the Santander banking group.

The lessons have activities, drawing on the charity’s 55 years’ experience of helping educators in schools and colleges.

The charity’s chief executive Michael Mercieca said: “Our aim is to make sure all children enter adult life with the skills and confidence to manage money well. The work teachers will be doing with our educational specialists over the coming months will help the pupils as part of the curriculum.”

The Santander bank is supporting Buxton Primary to get ‘centre of excellence’ status during the next school year, to become a ‘beacon of best practice’, helping other Tower Hamlets schools teach financial awareness to pupils. The school is one of 115 across the country taking part in the programme.

The idea of financial education for children as young as five is new, although awareness among secondary school pupils has its roots in London’s East End with the MyBank charity in Spitalfields running programmes since 2007.

MyBank teaches pupils from age 11 and older youth groups how to manage their money and understand financial products like pensions and government spending, which became part of secondary National Curriculum in 2014.

The charity is backed by some of Britain’s biggest trusts and foundations including JP Morgan Chase and the FT in Canary Wharf and the Big Lottery Fund.