Citizenship Foundation: educating for effective citizenship

Paying For It

Paying for It is an economic citizenship education programme, run in partnership with Aviva UK.

The free programme includes:

• lesson plans;
• teacher training;
• Chance to be Chancellor competition and resources;
• Youth Budget (from 2011);
• employee volunteering programme for Aviva staff.

What does it deliver?

The free lesson plans are designed to stimulate discussion around economic and public spending issues. Topics include health, environment, transport, education and employment.

Paying for It delivers aspects of the statutory citizenship curriculum at Key Stage 4, including:

• how the economy functions, including the role of business and financial services;
• the rights and responsibilities of consumers, employers and employees;
• the importance of playing an active part in democratic processes;
• encouraging students to express, justify and defend orally and in writing a personal opinion about such issues, problems or events;
• enabling students to contribute to group and exploratory class discussions, and take part in formal debates.

It also:

• brings interesting issues about money, finance and economics into the classroom, illustrating their relevance to everyday life;
• promotes stimulating and thought-provoking debate;
• integrates into PSHE, English and Maths curricula (and Modern Studies in Scotland).

How does it work?

Teachers register on the Paying for It website to download our free lesson plans. We provide free training to LEAs and universities on using the lessons effectively to address economic awareness.

This prepares the students to take part in Chance to be Chancellor, which challenges them to grapple with the UK Budget. There is also a competition element, which is available to participants in the challenge.

Diagram: How elements of the Paying for It programme fit together.

Timescales

• The Chance to be Chancellor challenge runs from January to March
• Lesson plans are available from September
• Training takes place between April and July and again between September and December.

Chance to be Chancellor

Chance to be Chancellor is our online challenge for 14-18 year-olds to create their own Budgets for the country.

This annual competition gives young people the opportunity to tell the Government how they think it should spend the public's money. These ideas are then presented to the Treasury, and in 2011 they formed the UK's first Youth Budget.

'It's incredibly important that you don't leave it to the guys in suits', says the BBC's Nick Robinson. 

 

Chance to be Chancellor: 'An absolutely excellent initiative to get us all involved,' says BBC Business Editor Robert Peston.

Visit the website to Register now for 2012.

Channel 4 Learning film about Chance to be Chancellor.

Youth Budget

On 31 March 2011 the UK Treasury was presented with the first ever Youth Budget, which contains views on the economy from hundreds of young people.

More than 2,700 people aged 14 to 18 developed their own alternative Budgets as part of our Chance to be Chancellor competition.

The winner of the competition was crowned 'Youth Chancellor' and all participants were included as contributors to the Youth Budget.

The occasion was marked by a panel debate of MPs chaired by Sam Fleming, Economics editor of the Times. Runners-up of the competition quizzed the panel on issues of the economy.

These young people were not yet old enough to vote, but they will inherit the impact of economic decisions made by politicians today. Therefore this is an excellent opportunity for government to listen to their views.

We hope that the Youth Budget will encourage young people (and their teachers) to take part in Chance to be Chancellor in the future, and that it will raise the profile of education for economic awareness.

Read the Youth Budget 2011