8 quick questions on UK coins and notes — what each one is worth, sorting by value, and easy addition. Designed for Year 1 and 2.
Audience
KS5 students (Y12-Y13) and school leavers
Key Stage
KS5
Months
4
Time
15-20 min
Topic
Renting, deposits and tenant rights
Last reviewed
2026-07-23
How to play
You take home £1,900 a month, you have £1,200 saved, and you're moving into your first rented flat. Rule of thumb: keep rent plus bills inside £950 a month. Choose one of three flats, then steer four months of real tenant life — bills to set up, a sofa question, a break-in, and the deposit endgame. Two scores track you: cash and tenant smarts. There is no single right flat — but there are definitely wrong moves. All rules and figures are real 2026/27 England ones.
For teachers: use this in class
Learning objectives: tenancy rights and deposit protection (the five-week cap, the 30-day protection rule, free scheme adjudication); contents vs buildings insurance; priority bills and the 25% single-person council tax discount; weighing rent against bills and risk. PSHE / Citizenship KS5.
25-minute activity: split the class three ways - each group plays a different flat, recording the month-by-month balance. Groups then compare final cash and tenant smarts on the board and defend their flat before a whole-class vote.
Differentiation: support - play Flat C together on the whiteboard, pausing at each decision for a class vote; stretch - recompute all three flats' four-month totals on paper, then find the monthly rent at which Flat B would beat Flat C.
Discussion questions: Which flat did the class pick, and why? Is the cheapest rent ever the cheapest flat by month 4? Why does the law make the landlord prove deposit deductions rather than the tenant disprove them? Whose job is it to insure a tenant's laptop - and why?
Curriculum: PSHE Association economic wellbeing KS5; Citizenship (consumer and housing rights). Uses real 2026/27 figures. See the curriculum map.
Cite this quiz
UK Tax Drag (2026). First Flat: don't get stung. Game. Available at: https://kids.uktaxdrag.co.uk/game-first-flat.html
CC BY 4.0. Free to use as exit tickets, retrieval practice, homework or self-assessment.
Game tips. Everything is a button: Tab and Enter play the whole game, and number keys 1-3 pick an option. Your best combined score saves on this device only. Try all three flats - the debrief changes every time. Print the paper version turns the flats and the four monthly dilemmas into discussion prompts with worked answers.