Introducing the Secondary Education toolkit – a three week programme

1. Introducing the Secondary Education toolkit – a three week programme August, 2019

2. Why use this toolkit? • This toolkit was developed specifically to support those local offices that wish to offer financial capability to secondary schools in their local area. • With the addition of financial capability onto the national curriculum, local offices now have an opportunity to work with their local authorities and schools to provide sessions to groups of students. This is often in the PSE (Personal and Social Education) setting, and can cover a range of age groups and needs.

3. Who exactly can this toolkit reach? This toolkit is the result of several years of testing and delivery in local secondary schools: it has been used for dozens of classes over several different year groups and ranges of differing needs and abilities. The learning from this extensive testing has been applied here by our in-house specialist. What ages should this be used for? As a rule of thumb, this toolkit is aimed at students who are approximately year 10 or 11 (age 15 or 16). However, it can successfully be used with students as young as 14, or in further education colleges with students up to 19-years old. The range of abilities – even within a single year group – is very wide, and this only increases when comparing school to school. Ultimately, the adviser will need to make an assessment of what topics suit the class.

4. How to use the Secondary Education toolkit The toolkit contains three sessions, designed for three consecutive PSHE lessons with a class. Each session comes with teacher notes, and then separate learner notes. Advisers should print out as many of the latter as they need, but are advised to keep a master copy of their own teacher notes, which they can annotate and add to over time. Session one – Attitudes and knowledge to money Session two – Understanding what household bills are and the basics of budgeting Session three – Banking basics A summary booklet is also provided for advisers to print out and give students in their final session. The toolkit is - like all these resources – considered to be a live work-in-progress. Please contact the Financial Capability and Consumer Education Team if you have any suggestions for improvements or alternatives.

5. Tips to keep in mind Advisors are not expected to be teachers; all schools should make sure that there is a teacher present with you in the classroom at all times, to maintain discipline and control the students. The ultimate aim is for advisers to use this toolkit as a foundation for their own school program. If a school offers a local office four sessions - or even more - then advisers should feel free to expand and change the activities. The financial capability resource library has over 250 optional activities here for advisers to pick and choose from. Unless an adviser has worked in a high school setting, it can be hard to really grasp the different levels between learners, even within the same class. When considering the differences between classes, years and schools, advisers will need to appreciate that these activities only form a foundation; some classes will race through them, others will not. Over time, advisers should become more experienced at judging what to use and when.

6. Recording on Casebook • Each activity in the toolkit has some recommended AIC codes for them included in the teacher notes. • Advisers do not have to use these if they feel their particular lesson did not cover the recommended areas, but generally these codes will accurately reflect the session. • Further advice on Citizens Advice evaluation methods is also included in each session of the toolkit. The recommended AIC code is here

7. What happens next? For those local offices interested in new and innovative models, which are catered to address the differing channels and needs of our clients, they can see the various toolkits available in the Resource Toolkits tab of the financial capability section of the Citizen Advice website. Further toolkits will be added as they leave the testing stage of their respective projects. • The Secondary Education toolkit is designed to support local offices when working in partnership with local authorities and secondary schools. • However, although the toolkit is provided for all local Citizens Advice and partner organisations to use, it is still very much a ‘work-in-progress’ and should be used as such. • New versions will be uploaded online at regular intervals, in response to continued feedback and practical testing.

8. And don’t forget… There is a detailed Best Practice Guide for use when providing advice in secondary school settings. This is developed from a financial capability perspective, and can be found in the Best Practice Guide section of the national financial capability resource library.

9. For any further information or feedback, contact us at Financial.Skills@citizensadvice.org.uk

10. The Financial Capability and Consumer Education Team • Bas Diablos • Financial Capability Development Lead Dominic Mukwamba • Financial Capability Development Officer Mel McGinn Consumer Education Development Consultant • Abby Samuel • Financial Capability Development Officer

11. Presented by: Date: