This week we venture into the education system and explore how a school is shaping the entrepreneurs of the future. In the episode, we are joined by Edd Moore, a primary school teacher and sustainability enthusiast renowned for his innovative teaching methods and environmentally friendly initiatives. Sparking their passions, the school Edd Moore teaches at encourages children to engage in sustainability-focused projects, evolving from a communal garden to selling handmade, eco-friendly goods while teaching them essential business skills. The fascinating project is helping shape young minds through entrepreneurship, with the 'Fiver Challenge' - an innovative initiative that empowers children to start their own mini-business venture using just five pounds! Stay tuned for helpful tips parents can employ to encourage their children, teenagers or young adults’ entrepreneurial spirit and mindset around money.
This week we venture into the education system and explore how a school is shaping the entrepreneurs of the future.
In the episode, we are joined by Edd Moore, a primary school teacher and sustainability enthusiast renowned for his innovative teaching methods and environmentally friendly initiatives.
Sparking their passions, the school Edd Moore teaches at encourages children to engage in sustainability-focused projects, evolving from a communal garden to selling handmade, eco-friendly goods while teaching them essential business skills.
The fascinating project is helping shape young minds through entrepreneurship, with the 'Fiver Challenge' - an innovative initiative that empowers children to start their own mini-business venture using just five pounds!
Stay tuned for helpful tips parents can employ to encourage their children, teenagers or young adults’ entrepreneurial spirit and mindset around money.
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Speaker 1 0:01
The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.
Christian Rodwell 0:19
Welcome to Episode 219 of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for wealth builders joined today by our founder, Mr. Kevin Whalen. Hello, Kevin.
Speaker 2 0:29
Hi, Chris. Good to be with you again.
Christian Rodwell 1:15
All right. Today's guest is Ed Moore. He's a teacher, primary school teacher. And we're tying back into the theme of wealth builders for families, Kevin, which of course we launched last month. And we've had a great first month we've had some fantastic speakers come in and talk with our members. We had Dr. Shelley James talking about why natural light is critical for young minds. We've had will Rainey, who is the Amazon Best Selling Author of grandpa's fortune, fables, he was sharing some lessons with our members. And it's all based around the seven family wealth principles. Kevin, specifically today with Ed, we're diving into number four, which is purpose, perhaps just a quick reminder would be useful. Kevin of the seven? Well,
Speaker 2 2:01
I'll talk about the purpose one, which is obviously an important one, because the whole idea around purpose is to, I suppose to create some form of living of your life. Or even during a transition, where what you're doing is you're making decisions on something that's really, really important to you. And often we hear the words passion, and purpose thing together. And I think when it comes to younger children, the more you can just give them exposure to different ideas that helps them shape, what becomes their purpose in the future. It's that willing to make mistakes, that creativity that exists in our younger people. But this happens throughout, right, we all find our passion and purpose in life, somewhere down the line. You know, I didn't get mine till I was 2829 didn't have anything, although I've said that they'll reflect on it. I did have a good economics teacher when I was about 14. And the thing that probably did make a difference. And maybe I just haven't recognised that as I talk about it. So the ability for people to be influencers, whether it's a teacher, whether it's a parent, whether it's a relative, or a grandparent, all really, really important. And we often hear, we have heard from our members that sometimes children of all ages often will respond better. When it's somebody else passing on the lesson, isn't it really and making the distinction? And it's great that Ed who's such an enthusiastic and award winning teacher recognised nationally as someone who's outstanding in his field, and it all came from his own influence, which we'll get to hear about.
Christian Rodwell 3:46
Absolutely, yeah. So today, conversation really is about giving children a platform to really explore and delve into their passions, which can ignite that entrepreneurial spark, as we will hear. So probably time for us to head on over to our conversation today. With Mr. Ed Moore. Ed, welcome to wealth talk. How are you?
Unknown Speaker 4:05
I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Christian Rodwell 4:07
You're welcome. Well, we caught you on half term, because normally busy in the classroom, Ed, aren't you?
Speaker 3 4:13
Yeah, fairly busy, don't really get much time to do anything else other than, you know, doing teaching during the day. So it's nice to have a bit of a break and be able to talk to you about environmental information. And yeah,
Christian Rodwell 4:26
it's incredible the work that you're doing it and no wonder that you've won multiple national awards for what you're doing. So before we get into the work inside the schools, your passion, obviously around ecological issues, environment. Let's find out a bit more about your background. So you've been a teacher for 11 years. Ed, tell us about the school that you work at.
Speaker 3 4:48
Yeah, so I work at damos first school in Dorchester in Dorset. I've been there for 11 years, and I teach all the subjects I teach all the primary subjects but my biggest passion is environment and sustainability.
Christian Rodwell 5:01
Yeah. And where does that stem from? stems from,
Speaker 3 5:05
from my granddad, my granddad was a head teacher himself, he had a huge passion about growing fruits and vegetables in his garden, he would never go to the supermarket, he would always grow his own, make his own bread, and had a real passion for teaching children and particularly his students, when you could back in the day, in his garden, in his greenhouse, showing them you know, all the variety of things that can be grown. And without
Christian Rodwell 5:32
that, perhaps you wouldn't have been introduced to that in school yourself.
Speaker 3 5:36
Yeah, definitely. Without being having that opportunity of seeing him during his retirement years, seeing him enjoy the garden and being able to be part of helping him in his garden, I probably had that passion that I do have now. So
Christian Rodwell 5:50
how has that translated now into the work that you're doing in school at the moment? I know, it's been a long process over the last 11 years. And I really want to get into some of the challenges perhaps that you faced inside the education system to try and get some of these new things onto their curriculum, whether that's officially or unofficially, but just so our listeners know, what are some of the things that you're doing right now with the children
Speaker 3 6:13
were growing fruits and vegetables in our garden, and they sell these sell the produce in a market, local market, down the road or off school, for donation. Also, all our food waste goes into like a big food waste composter. It never leaves our site. And we make this amazing compost for our school grounds. But we can also sell it for a donation to the community or we even collaborate with our local town council who use it in all their garden raised beds or playing fields to help grass regrowth. So you know, you know, we're doing, you know, doing some fantastic stuff, not just for our school, but also for our community. Absolutely.
Christian Rodwell 6:55
And, of course, we're on wealth talk podcast, right? So we always want to tie something in, in some way to the wealth related lessons. And there's many of those because not only are you doing great work for the environment, but the children are learning, as you said about skills such as selling marketing, being more confident, socialising, connecting, so what are some of the side effects that you know, these activities are having
Speaker 3 7:20
confidence, so much confidence, you're coming out with so much confidence? Through the entrepreneurship projects that we do, children are inspired to go out and have a go at, you know, launching their own project, their own little company that you have on the right hand side that you might see an American sort of thing? They're going out and thinking? Could I bet you know, bake some cakes? Could I make something because I make some birdhouses? Could I make a key ring? What else could I be doing to maybe make some pocket money on the side for the work that I'm doing at our school.
Christian Rodwell 7:56
So it's really having a ripple effect isn't there you're kind of sowing the seeds. And we have seven worth family wealth principles, when principle number three is planting seeds, which is all about time for children to you know, start early and reap the benefits further down in life. But I think purpose is the key principle here you're really instilling purpose and as you said to me, giving children a platform to explore and delve into their own passions and how important is that
Speaker 3 8:22
are really important sets them up for the future to be have that passion of whether that's making see bombs, for example, making you know, using recycled paper that is then mixed with wildflower seeds, which then could go in the ground and you know, make a beautiful like meadow sort of thing. You're raising money for the school but you're also contributing to the to nature and encouraging bees and butterflies to you know, enjoy that meadow, too.
Christian Rodwell 8:52
So I mentioned some of the awards you've won. Tell us about those Ed?
Speaker 3 8:56
Yeah, so really humbled to be able to have won so many awards, eco schools eco primary school, the year surfskate sewage plastic schools champion, Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots best educational institution of the air. And that's a really prestigious award. They know that's, that's obligates universities and colleges. And we're a first go we're four to nine years years old. And to think that, you know, such young children are making such a huge difference, not just in our community, but across the United Kingdom. And, you know, the world is phenomenal and very proud of what we do.
Christian Rodwell 9:36
But it wasn't always like that, was it, Ed? So when you joined 11 years ago, did you have any vision at the beginning or is it something that's naturally built over those that time?
Speaker 3 9:48
Well, I first joined the school, you know, the outside area was amazing. And the one thing that they didn't have was an allotment was a school garden. Our thought corps there's some In this, there's something that we need to instil in children and staff as well, of how they can look after their environment because children thought their food came from the supermarket, and they didn't understand about the money side. And that actually cool, can we grow something and then actually like sell it and then make some money and then that money could then we then spend it and then it will come back round. And we could like make this this this sort of thing. And then it steamrolled from there from the garden. The garden was the starting point that started it all off, and then it just steamrolled from there.
Christian Rodwell 10:35
So within the education system, we know that they don't teach children really lessons about entrepreneurship, about business about money. So how easy or how difficult has it been to start to introduce this? And how have you gone about funding that as well?
Speaker 3 10:52
Yeah, it was really difficult to start with, I think, trying to inspire children to want to, you know, take part in something like this was a real challenge. But through young enterprise were fantastic organisation and their five year challenge, they also do a 10 day challenge, I thought that we could use that, that process. So basically, each shard has five pounds, and we put five pounds together within the team. So we've got 20 children within our team, we've got 100 pounds, and then that 100 pounds can then help sell the business. But then you've got to pay that money back out of what you make sort of thing. So the first year, we just got to work of putting together a business. And it was called good garden grenades, which was recycled school paper mix of wildflower seeds that were managed to get off the local garden centre for free. And children had the opportunity to sell at farmer's markets and outside supermarkets. But then, the following year, it really built up it really ramped up because we, you know, we made about 1000 pounds in our first year. But then, in our second and third years, particularly our third year, when we made wax tastic no plastic, which is an alternative to cling film. And we had convercent Conte material dipped in beeswax, we got the costume for free, we had the beeswax for free. We had parents and adults cutting up material for us, we are the children and adults making the product. You know, we got in a graphic designer to help us, you know, make the make the logo. And then I think the turning point, the big thing was getting car salesmen and estate agents come in and actually coached the children how to sell. And that's really important. I think, for me, it's not about children standing behind a bar on a table and sort of saying, oh, you know, wait for them to come and say, Oh, here's your two pound 50. For me, it's let's go out there and sell our product. Let's see if we can get people to come to us. And my word, you know, we made in our third year, we made that five 6000 pounds. And the selling was amazing. And the children really gained so much confidence be able to go up to strangers. And suddenly this hooked them in to come to their store and you know, come by their product. Absolutely phenomenal.
Christian Rodwell 13:17
I think it's absolutely incredible. I love it so much. I can only imagine how much the children enjoy that as well. And is this optional for the children? Is it and where do you fit this in within the normal school day?
Speaker 3 13:30
Yeah, so this is like optional. It's run as a club off school. I would love it to be part of the curriculum and Oh, in Wales, they have really sort of embedded entrepreneurship in their school curriculum. And I would love it to be part of our curriculum, I think money is so important is dying, you know, we look at, we look at now when we go into shops are all forever using our credit cards, or our Visa card, you know, our, in our debit cards, and actually, children using money is you know, it's dying within school, in the community as well. They don't get to use it as much because they're forever seeing their parents and even themselves. I think even now is a car to tap onto.
Christian Rodwell 14:11
You mentioned now that whales are perhaps opening up a little bit more to the idea of including these into the curriculum, but in England still not and why do you think that? Is it? Really
Speaker 3 14:21
good question. I think our curriculum is, you know, is narrow. We need to be more broader about giving children more opportunities to be able to experience these life skills. These life skills really build upon inspiring children to want to be an entrepreneur, start their own business, and it really starts within our curriculum. And it's something the government really, really do need to look at. And I know that young enterprise is trying to you know, they're trying to get money matters, you know, back on the on the curriculum headlines.
Christian Rodwell 14:54
Have you seen any evidence of some of the children that perhaps you've worked with nearly stages of this as they've grown up, and you know, progress through the school when it comes to kind of career decisions and next stage of education, that now this is remaining inside of them this bog, and they're not looking at perhaps traditional routes into employment, but they're now thinking about how can they create value and create income streams themselves?
Speaker 3 15:20
Oh, definitely, you know, it's great to bump into children that, you know, you started working with when they were like, six, seven years old, and they're now you know, they're now in secondary school, and they're now doing like a business ala level or busy BTech, they want to do business at university, they want to, or they're going into college, and they want to do their, you know, their levels, 234 hands on experience, or even working in a business and building their way up, to learn those skills to keep on building on the skills that you've already learned within school. So, so good for the future of business? I say, Yeah,
Christian Rodwell 15:58
I know, it's a struggle for the schools, right, the funding is tight. And you're proving Aren't you that you don't necessarily have to wait for the green light from the government that you can implement this. It is possible you're living proof of this. So are you starting to have an impact on other schools? Have you seen other schools begin to introduce this in a similar way to what you're doing?
Speaker 3 16:18
Yeah, a lot more schools are, you know, introducing, you know, whether they're doing the farmer challenge, or the tenant challenge, they're, they're really instilling that within their ethos of their schools, I know lots of schools, they're trying to try and squeeze it in to their curriculum, which is already tight, packed as it is, but I think, you know, it could be easily could be easily linked to maths, PSC, he, you know, there's lots of different, you know, subject areas where it could easily be woven into. And I know, schools are looking at that this year. And next.
Christian Rodwell 16:52
And for any parents that may be listening to their said, and they would really love to see this in their school, they'd love their children to have the opportunity, what would be your recommendation to them,
Speaker 3 17:03
really encourage them certainly look into young enterprise look into the farmer change really stressed their schools to encourage them to do the five a challenge isn't great competition, with great rewards. But you know, not just on financial side, but on the personal side as well. Lots of schools seem to do it with a year six is when Sats are over. Because you know, there's a big chunk there at the end of the summer term where you know, they're not doing as much. And that is a good way to use it. But we like to use it as a fervour on early, we've even got foundation children taking part who are really matter wizard. So press your head teachers press your schools. And so you know, this really matters to us, you know, we want our children to be entrepreneurs or starting their own business or having these life skills. And this is a good place to start. And
Christian Rodwell 17:52
sure is that, and if anyone listening would like to connect with you to have a look and see some of the things that you're doing online, where's the best place for them to head? Yeah, so
Speaker 3 18:01
you can head to LinkedIn, add more, or you can head to Facebook, I've got our Facebook page, get to net zero with more. And please, you know, please send me a message on there on either, that'd be great. Yeah,
Christian Rodwell 18:13
Ed, you're going to be delivering a live session face to face for our families members, later on this month. So we're really looking forward to that. And of course, they'll have the opportunity to dive into some of the things we've been talking about today in a bit more detail with you. So thanks for that. And thank you so much for coming on, and sharing with our listeners today. No, thanks
Unknown Speaker 18:32
so much for having me.
Christian Rodwell 18:35
Enthusiastic man, Mr. Moore, we can hear that in his voice. He's been doing fantastic things for many years. And before we take a deeper look into some of those ideas that Edie was sharing, let's head on over to Trustpilot and pull out one of our reviews from the last seven days. And I'm gonna pull one out actually going back probably a couple of weeks or so from Albert, who's said, huge thank you to Kevin and Christian for travelling up to Manchester to host this networking event. The hospitality was outstanding. It was great to network with other wealth builders, and be surrounded by people with similar aspirations. Thanks again.
Speaker 2 19:09
Yeah, it shows the community, you know, is growing into I was so delighted that we're being acknowledged for getting out and about and meeting, you know, the people that we want to serve. And, and it was great to do that. And as I said, looking forward to Birmingham, and then subsequent so where do people go, Chris, to find out about where, when we're coming to a town near you, when would they do that?
Christian Rodwell 19:34
Yeah, wealth builders.co.uk forward slash events. I can say that right now, we've only got up until the end of this year. So November will probably be our last live face to face event of 2023. But we will be updating that page. So that is the URL to bookmark and go and check that out to find out where we'll be in the coming months. Cool. So Edie inspired at a young age by his My grandfather, who, again had a passion for really helping children understand about the environment and planting their own vegetables. We talked about from cradle to grave. Certainly we've what we're doing at wealth builders here. Now, Kevin is both directions. Yeah,
Speaker 2 20:15
that's right. I mean, traditionally, so much of let's call it financial guidance, training, education, is aimed at the eyes of an individual. Sometimes it's a couple. But we're expanding that. We believe that it's really important, yes, to focus on the founders, the pioneers, those people who are perhaps for the first time, taking the step towards building recurring income, building wealth, building a legacy. But nonetheless, we realise that the influence we want to give to a younger generation needs to be balanced. By also understanding the values of the older generation, you talked about that with your thoughts about how wealth builders and families would work together, because you don't have children of your own. But you wanted to honour the memory and respect the values of your own family. And I think Edie did a good job of explaining that to with the respect and appreciation that's lost him a lifetime. And even so far, but we'll continue way beyond this. And you can see the ripples and the effects that he's having. And I'm proud that he decided to share that with us really, because I do remember, and I was never an eco warrior. I do remember Chris's story from my own daughter, Holly, when she was all what do I think now seven, eight, probably similar to the ages of the people that Ed is influencing right now. And my daughter, Holly was known, really under the sort of auspices of Polly the squirrel saver. And that was put an interesting to think back that all she did really was saying we don't have in this school, any form of recycling, and this was way back. Now. She's in her 30s. Now, when they said, you know, for a homework, why is this important to you said, because every time we don't use paper, or we waste paper, we're cutting down a tree, which destroys the habitat of the squirrels, you know, and you can see that coming from the shaky pen of a seven or eight year old. And that was really what is happening now. And that happens all over the place. I mean, Greta Thornburg, the major major eco warrior started this at 15, you know, she was seeing very similar things, and then gradually is, has kind of emerged into almost a worldwide character influencing governments of the United Nations and everything else. So from small things, and from small ideas, big things can happen.
Christian Rodwell 22:56
Absolutely, it really does prove that when you're on a mission, you can make almost anything happen. And we know funding hasn't really been available. It's not been through that method that Ed has been able to do this is through him just keep pushing away and doing little bits, little bits and expanding over the last 10 years or so. But the one thing that really struck me was when he said just how much confidence those young children now have, and that he's inspiring them to think more creatively. And that's surely fostering an entrepreneurial mindset in them at a young age,
Speaker 2 23:32
or even if it isn't, it's fostering a caring mindset or one that's about understanding how to not do harm, but to create value. And I think true, that's an entrepreneurial thing right there. And certainly some of those children have their mind has been changed, and their careers will be changed by the ability to do entrepreneurial things. And in fact, this whole idea of the fiver challenge, and I would encourage people to look that up the Fiverr challenge, it's well documented. And the ability for two takes about four weeks think it's a four week programme. Over the summer, under the allows the under elevens. They do the fiver challenge and the under and the over elevens do the tenor challenge. And the idea is it's pledging five pounds as a group, you know, as an individual in a group, and then you decide how you want to put that money to work. And what you're getting back really is the lesson. And then you're getting to keep the profit for the school or for whatever purpose. But at the same time, you're building, I suppose in the minds of our younger people, the ability to think outside of SATs, you know, rows and rows of kids doing SATs tests, nobody can really follow the logic behind that. So I applaud it. for getting the children out of the SATs room, into the garden into different places, I mean, wax tastic. That's fantastic. Coming up with new ideas, and I'm sure those young brains will come up with some brilliant concepts and, and so could our listeners too. So what are you doing with yours and it doesn't have to be something big. Greta Thornburg just took Friday off school, and said, I'm not going to school while these things are going on, you know, so you can take small steps. In my view, you know, we talk in wealth builders, for our wealth builders, members who are building their wealth. Chris, we talk about Neverland. 30 days go by, without doing something positive, towards building your wealth. It isn't always about building wealth. Because sometimes you need to learn something. Sometimes you need to plant the seed, don't you? Alang, we just want to encourage our parents to also do something similar with their family. In the language, perhaps we're thinking about it, just do one thing? What one thing can you do to get your child of any age, you know, the next generation to do something that develops their mindset, around entrepreneurialism around money, just around sharing even and doing something for somebody else. So
Christian Rodwell 26:22
some great things there. And hopefully, inspiration. And if you think well, that'd be great in my school, then why not speak to them put a little bit of pressure on trying to encourage the school to take some action, as Ed said, you know, just ask, because it's starting to now have a ripple effect across the country, which is fantastic to see, in future sessions focused on families within our community. Kevin, you'll be doing one soon. next couple of weeks, I believe around financial products for children and teenagers as well. So a big question that we're getting asked within the community.
Speaker 2 26:54
Yes, and that's a constantly evolving thing really, from I mean, I like to call it products and practices, because there's things you can do that can help make money. And there are, there are products that exist, whether it's in the banking arena from different bank accounts, different ways of interacting with money. We know we spoken about before the increasing invisibility of money. So also understanding that if you're going to use prepaid debit cards, that you can keep an eye on what's going on, but they can use their money and interact with buying and selling things in an easy way. We still want to bring the tactile nature of money into the lives of our younger people as well. So they, they don't lose sight of that, because it's too easy to lose sight of it in the way the world is going. So we'll talk about that. We'll also talk about things that children perhaps won't see. They might see later, like Junior ISIS, Junior pensions, things like that. Also, Premium Bonds is a big thing simply because, you know, it's an easy thing you can use to to make as a donation. 25 quid you know, it's not a big thing. Lots of different things as well as tax planning. You all children have got a tax free allowance the same as you and I have. So how do you use that? What are the different things that you can do to bring value to you as a family remembrance the wealth of the whole family? And that will include what can grandparents and relatives do, as well? Sounds
Christian Rodwell 28:27
good. We'll be looking forward to that session. All right, well, we will be here as usual, same time, same place next week.
Speaker 2 28:34
We will indeed and until then, my friend see it also says do it.
Speaker 1 28:42
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside the wealth builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealth builders.co.uk/membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk/membership