Importantly, while many people will tell you about the benefits of opening an account for your precious newborn when you’re basically on your way home from the hospital, it’s not necessarily high on the to-do list during those early months. We’d highlight that it’s not too late to start a few years down the track. Sure, you might not be able to take care of their university fees completely, but you could make a pretty decent contribution.

Let’s take a look at this example. If you began saving into a Junior ISA cash account when your child was five years old and put in, say, £50 a month over 13 years until their 18th birthday, you’d have £10,208 (assuming an interest rate of 4%, which is still currently available on some Junior Cash ISAs).

Please remember that the value of investments will fluctuate and returns may be less than the amount originally invested. Tax treatment depends on your individual circumstances and the ISA and tax rules can change. Chelsea does not offer advice and so you must manage your ISA yourself.

While no 18-year-old I know is going to turn their nose up at that sort of sum, you could potentially boost it quite significantly by investing into the stock market instead. The Junior ISA also provides a tax-efficient wrapper through which you can buy shares, bonds or funds on your child’s behalf, up to a maximum amount of £9,000 per year.

The average global equity fund has returned around 8.5% a year over the past 10 years**. While past performance is no guarantee of future returns, if you were to hypothetically apply this rate to contributions of £50 a month over a 13-year period, this would give you £14,170. Even if you estimated annual returns at a more conservative rate of 7%, you could still have increased your savings to £12,666.

For this type of investment, we’d go with a solid, core holding such as Rathbone Global Opportunities or T. Rowe Price Global Focused Growth Equity, which are both in the Chelsea Selection.

Of course, you may want to diversify and hold a couple of different funds in your Junior ISA to take advantage of periods of strength in different markets. You can easily split a £50 monthly contribution between three funds.

Other sectors to consider could include a European or a US equities fund. Here we would highlight the CT European Select or IFSL Marlborough European Special Situations funds, again two funds on the Chelsea Selection, and both outperforming their peers over five and ten years***. In the US we would consider the likes of Brown Advisory US Flexible Equity which has an excellent track record of outperformance, returning 251% for investors over the past ten years, compared with 193% for the wider sector***.

One thing to keep in mind with Junior ISAs is that once your child turns 18, the account passes into their control and they can immediately access the money for any purpose they like. You might intend for them to pay off their university fees, but they may well have other ideas! However, the Junior ISA does automatically turn into a standard ISA at age 18 and so can continue to grow tax-free. With some financial education, your children could make the most of this opportunity. There is also the option of taking tax-free income from the ISA to help cover university costs.

One suggestion, which may encourage your teenagers to spend the large lump sum responsibly, is to get them to also start contributing a small amount to the account each month during secondary school. This has the double benefit of a) boosting their savings even further and b) getting them engaged with investing from an early age.