Future-Ready Students: Financial Skills for Life
St Mary's financial education program engages students in the Senior School and Sixth Form in tailored workshops designed to build their confidence and prepare them for a financially astute future.
Our recent workshops for Years 7 to 10 were delivered through our long-standing partnership with Bright Futures Ltd, who focus on building financial literacy, career employability, and business skills for students.
Year 7 - Enterprise and Employability
Year 7 students begin building their financial know-how in Enterprise and Employability sessions, where they identify and practice entrepreneurial skills through a series of team challenges incorporating leadership and problem-solving.
This February's workshop was a hive of activity focussed on the efficient prioritisation of their tasks, with cooperation and coordination at the heart of each team's success.
Year 8 - Business Brains and Enterprise
In Year 8, students take part in a dynamic manufacturing and trading, marketing and rebranding exercise which demonstrates the real world of profit and loss, and shows how energy and creativity, negotiation and effective time management drive success.
Reflecting on their performance this February, Year 8 students, Aanoushka, Hebe, Navya and Imogen said: "Perseverance and keeping your head when negotiating for a bargain made us a good team."
Year 9 - Money Matters
The Year 9 Money Matters workshop delivers financial acumen through activities which focus on the skills needed to make informed financial decisions. They build their knowledge of financial terminology, budgeting, fraud, credit and store cards and payday loans.
In their January workshop, the current Year 9 were quick to realise that their combined powers of negotiation, collaboration, teamwork and, importantly, reading the small print, were not only key to success in their exercises, but also gave them a huge confidence boost when they realised the sum of all their efforts. | 
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Year 10 - Employability and Enterprise
Year 10 explore risk-taking in an entrepreneurial context, money management and business planning, linking these skills to personal attributes and workplace readiness to show that the talents of the inner entrepreneur and negotiator are there to be discovered and developed.
In January's workshop, Year 10 students Olivia, Maya, Evie and Mila were finding success in trading tokens for letters to build up high-scoring words. With an emphasis on good interaction skills and teamwork, they decided the exercise was: "A fun way of learning how to negotiate and recognise a good deal." | 
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Through each stage of the programme, our students discover that financial capability is more than just numbers, it is about confidence, collaboration and recognising opportunity.
February 2026