Playing shops has been a primary school pastime for generations but for the children of the credit crunch it has just turned serious.

Schools are setting up banks and allowing pupils to deposit real money and earn interest with the help of staff from high street and investment banks, The Times has learnt.

Pupils who struggle with maths will also get a bank manager or clerk as a mentor to help them to learn how to handle money and improve their arithmetic skills.

Jean Gross, director of the Every Child a Chance Trust, which is running the scheme in connection with Barclays and Deutsche Bank, said that some seven-year-olds could not count beyond two. “After two years in school some children have no idea of maths,” she said.

Eligible children will have qualified for the Every Child Counts programme, which aims to give one-on-one support for those who find maths especially difficult at an early age.

“We want them to see that maths is fun, maths is good and helps you get on in life. These volunteers from Barclays will give them high aspirations. The pupils in the scheme may think to themselves, ‘Maybe I’ll work in a bank one day’.

“It’s important that children become financially literate. So many people don’t know how to manage money,” Ms Gross added. She denied that the banks were trying to secure future customers through the scheme.

“The more financially capable people we have in the future the better it is for banks,” she added.

Barclays has pledged £1.4 million to providing maths kits and mentors for 1,440 children over three years in the Midlands but the scheme will be extended across the country.

The maths kits include games such as snakes and ladders, dominoes and jacks. “We are trying to get families confident to help their child with maths. There is a big problem with adults who feel that they can’t do maths. But it’s not just pages of sums, it’s used when you’re shopping, or playing board games,” Ms Gross said. Government statistics suggest that children can increase their maths skills by 15 per cent if they are helped at home.

At Russells Hall primary school in Dudley, pupils are setting up a bank, shop and a travel agency this term. They will save money for their school trips and get 10p of interest for every £1 they deposit.

Volunteers from the local branch of Barclays will help children to learn about financial ideas and real-life situations of saving and buying things. “They will be thinking about saving and learning some of the words that go with money and about the need to be prudent with money,” said Jen Brown, the school’s maths coordinator.

Mike Amato, chief distribution and product officer of Barclays, said: “In the current highly risky and complex financial climate, it makes economic sense to intervene early with seven-year-olds to stop them costing the public purse billions later.”

• A poll for the Sutton Trust education charity suggests that more than three quarters of the population think that the recession has limited their chances to improve their standard of living. Only one in three people believes that there are equal opportunities to get ahead in the UK — compared with 50 per cent who thought so when surveyed earlier this year.

The poll of 2000 people, conducted by MORI on behalf of the trust, also found that 70 per cent think children’s chances in life are too dependent on their parents’ income.

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