Skills for Life: Financial Literacy
Financial Literacy is an Open Awards Skills for Life unit on everyday money: payment methods, keeping money safe, budgeting, comparing prices and value, and saving and borrowing. Each level, from Entry 1 to Level 2, is a separate 20 hour, 2 credit unit, assessed through school-designed tasks collected in a portfolio and judged Pass or Fail. Digital demand is medium: Entry 3 learners must compare prices on online supermarkets, Level 2 learners must use the internet to compare products and summarise the security risks of digital payments, and budgets and presentations can be done digitally, but much of the unit is practical money handling.
- Awarding body
- Open Awards
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 20
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of digital work
- Medium
- Specification
- Open the specification
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level 1 (CBM076) and Entry Level 2 (CBM077): Four outcomes at each level. Entry 1 learners state where money comes from, identify safe places to store money, sort money into received and spent through role play, and state a reason for saving. Entry 2 learners identify coins and notes up to £20, describe simple rules for using a bank card, complete a simple budget, check receipts and track spending, and tell needs from wants. Assessed by provider-designed tasks such as sorting, role play and simple budgets, collected in a portfolio. 20 guided learning hours and 2 credits at each level, Pass or Fail.
- Entry Level 3 (CBM078) and Level 1 (CBM079): Entry 3 learners identify payment methods, carry out simple money and change calculations, record and total income and expenditure on a budget sheet, compare supermarket prices online, describe responsible credit use and present on saving. Level 1 learners describe at least three payment methods and their benefits and risks, prepare a two-weekly budget and calculate totals, compare prices for three services, describe ways to save, and present on borrowing and repaying on time. Provider-designed tasks collected in a portfolio. 20 guided learning hours and 2 credits at each level, Pass or Fail.
- Level 2 (CBM080): Learners explain how banking methods such as direct debits and standing orders work, summarise at least three security risks of digital payments, explain essential and non-essential spending, create and analyse a monthly budget against actual spending, use the internet to compare two higher value products including add-on costs, interest and terms and conditions, and complete a key word matching exercise. Provider-designed tasks collected in a portfolio. 20 guided learning hours, 2 credits, Pass or Fail.
Skills that use Problem-solving and modelling
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Building and analysing a budget with digital templates
Learners complete a simple budget (Entry 2), record and total income and expenditure on a budget sheet (Entry 3), prepare a two-weekly budget from an agreed template (Level 1), and create a monthly budget and analyse actual against planned spending (Level 2). The budget is required, but a spreadsheet is not: the resources list budgeting templates and digital devices for completing financial tasks.
DCF: Data and information literacy, Problem-solving and modelling
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils enter a week of pocket money income and spending into a spreadsheet template and use SUM to find the totals.
- Year 8
- Pupils build a monthly budget spreadsheet for a teenager with a part-time job, using formulae to show money left over.
- Year 9
- Pupils add an actual spending column to a budget spreadsheet, calculate the difference from the plan, and chart where spending went over.
Show the specification wording and the DCF statements
Where it is in the specification: Learning outcome 2, Entry 2 to Level 1; Level 2, criteria 3.2 and 4.1; Indicative Content, Level 1 page 20, Level 2 page 23; Physical Resources, page 7
“create a two-weekly budget from an agreed template”
Progression step 3
I can construct, refine and interrogate data sets within tables, charts, spreadsheets and databases to test or support an investigation.
I can use a range of spreadsheet formulae, e.g. + - / x, sum, average, max, min.
Progression step 4
I can create a simple model or self-contained algorithm.
I can perform analysis on simple data sets including grouping data as appropriate.
Good to know
- Each level is a separate unit with its own code, worth 2 credits and 20 guided learning hours: CBM076 (Entry 1), CBM077 (Entry 2), CBM078 (Entry 3), CBM079 (Level 1) and CBM080 (Level 2); every unit page states "Guided Learning Hours: 20" (Unit Content, pages 11 to 22).
- Only one level counts in a qualification: "with the exception of British Sign Language (BSL), units with the same title at different levels are barred for completion within the same qualification" (Level 1 Qualification Guide, Qualification Units, page 17).
- Tasks are set by the school: the unit is "assessed through assessment tasks and activities designed by the provider", tasks need pre-course verification, and "All assessment criteria must be met in full for the learner to be awarded a 'pass'" (Assessment Approach, page 8).
- Evidence goes in a portfolio of evidence, on paper or digital, and "Wherever possible, e-portfolios are encouraged" (Assessment Approach, page 8).
- Resources must include "access to digital devices (e.g., computers or tablets) for research and completing financial tasks", calculators, budgeting templates, and "access to online tools or simulated banking environments where appropriate" (Physical Resources, page 7).
- The unit specification has no rule on AI tools; the qualification guide only requires that evidence must "Be the learner's own work" (Level 1 Qualification Guide, Assessment Conditions, page 30).
- The Level 2 unit looks like a draft: criteria 2.2 and 2.3 repeat 1.1 and 1.2 (banking methods and digital payment risks), 3.1 repeats 2.1, outcome 3 (consumer choices) has "Create a personal budget" as 3.2, and outcome 4 (saving, borrowing and investment) has "Analyse actual vs planned spending" and "Compare financial features of products" (pages 22 to 23). The guidance numbers do not match the criteria, and the progression table's Level 2 saving and borrowing content is only covered by a key word matching exercise (page 23). Check with Open Awards before planning Level 2.
Links with other qualifications
Financial Literacy links with GCSE Mathematics and Numeracy, which cover budgets, best buys, percentages and interest, and with GCSE Digital Technology, which covers online payment security and spreadsheets. The Level 2 comparison of higher value products, with add-on costs, interest and terms and conditions, matches consumer and finance topics in GCSE Business. Within the Open Awards Skills Suite, Business Finance applies the same budgeting and pricing skills to a fundraising activity, and Online Safety covers scams and safe online shopping that support the digital payment risks here. Compared with the Pearson Financial literacy unit, the Open Awards unit names specific online tasks, online supermarkets at Entry 3 and internet product comparison at Level 2, so its digital demand is higher.
Source: Open Awards Skills for Life Unit Specification, Financial Literacy, Entry Level 1 to Level 2.