Going Digital (Money Heroes)

This is a Money Heroes resource.

Money Heroes is an award-winning FREE programme from Young Money, supported by HSBC UK, seeking to transform financial education for primary children aged 3-11. We help young people learn about money both at school and at home, supporting both educators and parents with a range of high-quality, fun and engaging resources.

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This resource, is suitable for students age 7-11, with flexible options for delivery including activities, differentiation, and challenges. In this resource, we begin to teach pupils about how things are paid for, without physically exchanging money. As more people are using cashless payment methods in society nowadays, this understanding is becoming increasingly important. This activity supports pupils to understand the ways that people pay for things digitally, by exploring the various ways to pay through role play.

Activity length:

20 minutes per role play – these can be split over various lessons
Learning objectives: (taken from the Young Money Financial Education Planning Frameworks)

Managing risks and emotions associated with money: using accounts to keep money safe and to save
• I can keep my money in a standard and/or online bank account and what benefits this might have.

How to manage money: how to pay
• I know that cash is only one way to pay for goods and services.
• I can describe ways of paying that don’t involve cash e.g. debit cards, credit cards, online payments.

What’s involved?

First, we ask pupils to tell us all the different forms of payment they are familiar with e.g cash, debit card, credit card, apple pay, gift card, bank transfer etc – and discuss with them any they are not familiar with. Also ask: why do people choose to pay for things digitally? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

Then, split pupils into groups of 3 – each group is given a different type of payment to focus on. They must discuss how their type of payment works, and the pros and cons of it. Then, they are given prompt and instructions to help them role play making a payment using this method, which they present to the class.

Role play includes 3 different roles within the group – one plays the ‘consumer’, one plays the ‘bank’ and one plays the role of ‘money’.

Cross-curricular links:

English: Descriptive writing/spoken word (describing digital payment methods)
Mathematics: Calculations, money
PSHE: Economic wellbeing and being a responsible citizen

You can find more high-quality resources at the Young Enterprise Resource Hub.