The Big Blue Office

The Big Blue Office is the HMRC area on DirectgovKids - the children’s area of Directgov.

It's designed to introduce the idea of money, tax, benefits and personal finance to children in Key Stages 1 and 2. The information is cross-referenced with the maths and citizenship areas of the National Curriculum to ensure that it can be used in the classroom. Supporting material is included for teachers and parents, such as lesson plans, parents’ activity sheets, instruction leaflets and fact files.

The Big Blue Office is a fun, interactive world featuring:

  • a comic strip showing what a town without taxes would be like
  • an animation explaining the how taxes work
  • an interactive game, Fair Shares, which puts children in charge of raising taxes and spending money on services for the Directgov town

'Fair Shares' - the game

Once inside The Big Blue Office, pupils can play the ‘Fair Shares’ game - putting them in charge of all the money in the DirectgovKids world.

There is an easy and a hard level, but the aim in both is to spend money on services while still keeping tax rates down.

There are ten buildings to spend money on: the police, the fire brigade, hospitals, schools, public transport, parks and green spaces, museums and libraries, energy, and international relations and waste and sewage. Giving them money makes them happy.

You can raise money by raising taxes but beware - raising taxes too high makes people in the town unhappy! Everyone has to be happy for you to win the game.
In the easy level, suitable for KS1 and lower KS2, there are fewer buildings to run and you are given more money to spend. The harder level, more suitable for KS2 pupils, has more buildings and lasts twelve months rather than eight.

Instructions for the Fair Shares game (opens new window)

Lesson plans about money (opens new window) - click on the theme ‘money’.

All areas conform to current accessibility standards. This means that descriptors are provided for those using screen readers. The size and colour of all text can be changed. An HTML version of the building and its resources is provided for those who do not wish to or who cannot use Flash.