The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Financial Education Resources for Your School
Do you want to know how to add financial education to your set curriculum? How it benefits you and your students? What should you look for in a quality financial education resource? Read our ultimate guide to financial education resources!
As the cost-of-living crisis pushes more families into financial distress, it is more important than ever that children receive positive lessons about money from a young age. In the rush to address this, many resources have been created that show signs of not being quality checked by teachers.
You want to know the resources you are using in your classroom are accurate, relevant to young people, and free from bias that could impact students’ long-term relationships with money.
Our education team have created a checklist for teachers, schools and parents to help you choose the best resources for your school and children.
We recommend only using financial resources that meet high standards in all of the following areas:
Intent
Curriculum
Approach
Quality
Intent
It is really important to check that your resources are coming from a financial education expert to ensure that the right skills and knowledge are covered. Money spending habits form at an early age so biased or incorrect content can have a negative impact on teachers and students.
When choosing your resources, ask yourself the following questions:
Was this designed by an expert in financial education or just financial products?
Is this promoting or marketing a business?
If it is a for profit business, does it overtly or subliminally encourage borrowing as a primary money solution?
Do they push specific financial products or services or do they offer a fair and balanced view of all financial options?
Have they been created with teachers and students needs in mind?
Curriculum
The curriculum is very crowded and it can be a challenge to add in additional content to your classes. You need to consider how financial education resources will fit into your existing curriculum content as well as what new skills and knowledge they will bring to your classroom.
Consider the following:
Do they make your job easier by covering objectives in the Mathematics and PSHE curriculum?
Do they include clear links to key subjects in the curriculum?
Are they regularly updated to meet the curriculum as it evolves?
Do they address the complex issue of wants and needs, a foundational principle for understanding budgeting, spending, saving, lending, and giving?
Do they provide factual learning on what money is, the forms that money comes in, and that money comes from different sources?
Do they help students develop an understanding of risk?
Approach
Good financial education is more than understanding what money is and where it comes from. It should give children the practical skills and thought processes that they can use throughout their lives.
With this in mind, make sure that the resources:
Improve critical thinking by give children the information they need to develop an understanding of the value of money.
Promote questioning through high quality speaking and listening activities.
Encourage discussion at school and at home.
Avoid shaming and/or negative stereotypes around money by embracing different views, values and approaches when it comes to money.
Upskill you the teacher by improving your confidence to answer questions that might arise.
Are easily adapted to meet the needs of your students, including those with alternative needs.
Promote empathy, which is especially important during the cost-of-living crisis
Are age and knowledge appropriate. It is important to ensure that the foundations are secure before moving on to more complex ideas like borrowing, which often includes the concept of interest or financial risk.
Quality
The final thing to consider is whether these resources are a good enough quality for you to use. External resources should add value to your lessons, and engage children using materials or activities that would be difficult to develop on your own.
Try to avoid:
Resources that are at or below a quality that you could easily produce.
Filler activities that do not promote learning or skills building, but instead kill time with recall level tasks.
Resources that do not adapt to your needs and your students’ needs.
Resources that don’t upskill the teacher as well as the students.
As a charity, our aim is to improve financial education to ensure that children, communities, schools and families have the best opportunity to thrive. Our specialist financial education team have created the free LifeSavers programme and help children form healthy money habits. This innovative and value-based programme equips primary schools across the UK with vital high-quality resources, knowledge, and training to meet existing curricula and teach valuable financial education skills. Access cross-curricular CPD, physical and digital resources, and planning tools designed for a whole school and community approach for EYFS to KS2.