Many people have found that with spiralling debt and increasing costs of living they feel that their only recourse for money is to resort to illegal moneylenders.

While this might appear to be a short-term fix to help them to live, especially if they are denied the normal lines of credit from High Street financial institutions, it is a course of action fraught with peril.

They end up paying much more in the long run and loan sharks are not bound by any codes of practice – there have been reported instances of debt collectors harrassing mums at the school gates for payments and if debts spiral too far out of control there is no saying what the loan sharks will resort to in order to get their cash back.

A lack of financial common-sense is often blamed for these problems, so it is good that an initiative is in place to teach children how to handle money and the consequences of getting involved with the shadier end of finance.

While some of the issues are obviously going to be beyond primary school children, helping them to be a little more financially astute from a very young age might well allow them to avoid mistakes later in life.

If children can take the lessons learned at school and apply them throughout their lives they will hopefully not get into situations where they risk running foul of the loan sharks who can have a stranglehold on our communities.

And perhaps the next generation, if a little more financially savvy, might well put these opportunistic vultures out of business once and for all.