Accounting Clubs in Schools

What is Accounting Clubs in Schools?

Accounting Clubs in Schools is a ten-week programme that provides financial education as an enrichment activity for 16–18 year olds. It is hosted by Accounting Cafe, supported by volunteers, and uses the Colour Accounting Learning System under licence.

The programme adopts an accounting lens to deliver financial education. It provides a foundational understanding of financial information structure — “accounting literacy”. Accounting literacy provides a grounding and context for applied financial concepts such as payslips, student loans, credit cards, mortgages, and investment returns. More research is needed, but a tentative hypothesis is that accounting literacy enables students to approach novel financial concepts more confidently.

Accounting Clubs are running in about a dozen schools across the UK, and the responses from teachers and students have been enthusiastically positive.

Accounting Club Educators deliver the programme. These can be teachers within the school or college, accounting academics from a nearby university or other knowledgeable community members.

What participants can expect from Accounting Club

Accounting Club runs as an enrichment or after-school weekly activity for a term. There are ten sessions of approximately 90 minutes each. Resources, lesson plans, instructor videos and activities are provided for each club meeting.

Fundamentals of accounting

The first three sessions are based on activities and conversations introducing participants to fundamental accounting concepts and their relationships. Through stories and activities, participants are introduced to the concept of duality and the five financial statement elements.

Business accounting

Using Colour Accounting, an interactive and playful activity, participants experience “doing” accounting. They are each given their own Colour Accounting pack, which is theirs to keep. After Colour Accounting, participants navigate a set of financial statements, and we coach them in analysing reports meaningfully.

Personal finance

We then move on to personal finance and use fundamental accounting concepts to explore wealth, savings, budgeting and investing. The content is carefully designed to be agnostic in terms of the financial background of participants.

The Colour Accounting Learning System

Colour Accounting is at the heart of the programme. The Colour Accounting Learning System is a proprietary learning tool owned by Wealthvox and used by Accounting Cafe under licence. Accounting Club Educators are trained to use these tools in a classroom setting as part of the accreditation process.

ACEs are provided with a Colour Accounting pack when they register for training. To deliver the Accounting Club programme, schools are expected to order Colour Accounting packs directly from Wealthvox. Information about doing this is provided to ACEs during the accreditation process.

Who can be an Accounting Club Educator?

Accounting Club Educators (ACEs) are people with some prior experience in accounting or business education who have been trained and accredited to deliver Accounting Clubs in Schools.

Some prior technical knowledge is required and ACEs must be able to speak enthusiastically and authoritatively about accounting. The technical content is commensurate with the financial elements of BTEC or A Level Business.

Initially, they are coming from Accounting Cafe’s community of university lecturers, school teachers and commercial trainers. Accounting Cafe provides training, support and accreditation.

We expect a mix of people delivering Accounting Clubs in Schools: accounting academics, school teachers, and commercial trainers. In fact, anybody with some business experience and financial acumen is capable of delivering the programme after being trained.

The benefits of becoming an Accounting Club Educator

Being an ACE is a way of using your experience and skills in a way that has a positive impact on young people and the local community.

You will improve your teaching practice by applying it in new contexts and using different resources and materials.

Being an ACE will deepen your understanding of the relationship between accounting, financial literacy, personal finance and well-being.

For university staff, Accounting Clubs in Schools forms part of your scholarship output, knowledge exchange and demonstrates impact. This is evidence for promotion and institutional teaching and learning qualifications. You can also use your contribution as evidence when applying for external accreditations and funding.

For teachers within schools, it is a way of developing your practice, and provides evidence of continuing professional development.

The responsibilities of an Accounting Club Educator

ACEs make contact with schools and are responsible for developing a relationship with the teaching staff and leadership team. ACEs can approach schools directly using their personal contacts, parent networks and links to governing bodies. ACEs who are employed by a university might also coordinate with their university outreach teams.

Many schools host showcase events to help students choose an appropriate enrichment programme. ACEs may be asked to support this by attending and presenting the benefits of Accounting Club. Accounting Cafe provides communication material for recruitment events that ACEs and teachers can use in schools.

ACEs deliver the programme in schools in a series of weekly 90-minute workshops over 10 weeks within a single term. This requires a commitment to be in a school for approximately two hours per week. Some flexibility may be required for school activities such as career days and external trips, and there will be a half-term break.

ACEs take responsibility for complying with the school’s policies at all times. These are usually available on request and may be published on the school’s website.

Finding the time

Understandably, you may not have the capacity to do this in your spare time.

School teachers may be able to negotiate time to do this as part of their normal contractual duties. University staff, similarly, can ask their line managers for community or school outreach hours.

If your organisation is unable to allocate contracted hours, perhaps suggest the benefits of Employer-supported volunteering (ESV).

Cost of training and accreditation — £145

The training fee is £145. This includes one “Colour Accounting” pack, online training, and supporting materials. Fees are paid to Accounting Cafe on registration and are non-refundable.

Five hours of training is provided in four 90 minute online sessions. The “Colour Accounting” pack is posted beforehand and additional resources are on the Accounting Cafe website.

University staff may be able to recover the cost from their departmental staff development, community outreach or marketing budgets.

Similarly, school teachers may be able to access enrichment and staff development budgets.

Cost of programme delivery — approximately £20 per pupil

Each participant in Accounting Club requires their own “Colour Accounting” pack. The cost of each pack is £20 plus postage, packing and VAT. Most schools are able to reclaim the VAT.

Schools order packs directly from Wealthvox. These are only supplied to schools associated with an accredited trainer.

Dates for training

June 2024
Evenings from 5.45pm to 7.00pm

Day 1 — Tuesday 11 June
Day 2 — Thursday 13 June
Day 3 — Tuesday 18 June
Day 4 — Thursday 20 June

You must complete each day of training before you can be accredited.