A school in Bolton has become one of the first accredited Centres of Excellence for Financial Education thanks to funding from a partnership between wealth manager St James’s Place and Young Enterprise.

Tonge Moor Primary School is the first school to be accredited as a Centre of Excellence for Financial Education that SJP sponsors.

Other schools have also received the accreditation from Young Enterprise.

A year into its partnership with SJP, Tonge Moor has achieved the status by increasing its coverage of financial education from 51% to 96.5% of the school’s curriculum.

It has embedded financial education into personal, social, health, relationship and economics (PSHRE) education and mathematics, as well as widening its reach into a range of other subjects.

Wealth manager SJP has committed to sponsor 21 schools on their journeys to become Young Enterprise Centres of Excellence since the partnership began at the end of last year.

Young Enterprise is a national financial and enterprise education charity that encourages young people to succeed in the changing world of work by equipping them with skills, knowledge and confidence.

So far 12 SJP-funded schools have signed up to the accreditation process.

The funding provided by SJP helps equip academic staff with the support, tools, and resources needed to help build the financial confidence of pupils and embed financial education across the school’s curriculum.

Maria Spooner, head of corporate consultancy, responsible business, at St James’s Place said: “We are delighted that Tonge Moor has achieved its Centre of Excellence accreditation, helping to improve the financial literacy of its pupils, staff, and wider community.

“At St James’s Place, we are committed to becoming a leading responsible business in the UK. Supporting the financial wellbeing and education of our clients, our people and wider communities is key to this.

"Early education is an essential part of building long term financial resilience, with research showing that money habits are set as early as the age of seven. By supporting the COE programme, we hope to build those habits early and enable brighter financial futures for young people across the UK.”

I noted this sentence “The Tonge Moor Primary Academy in Bolton is the first school in the UK to be named as a Centre of Excellence for Financial Education.” We wanted to ask if this could be corrected as Tonge Moor is the first school to be accredited that SJP sponsors but there are other schools that have received that title from Young Enterprise.