Skills for Life: Financial Literacy
Financial literacy is a Pearson Skills for Life unit in which learners describe where money comes from and what it is spent on, separate needs from wants, compare ways of saving, meet a simple investment and its risk, and find out where to get financial help. It is one 10 hour unit that learners combine with others into a Pearson Skills for Life Award, Certificate or Diploma, from Entry 1 to Level 2, internally assessed and graded Pass or Fail. Numeracy sits in needs and wants, savings methods, interest and investment risk, with budgeting calculations suggested in Annexe C. Literacy sits in describing and explaining income, saving and help, researching advice, and role play.
- Awarding body
- Pearson
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 10
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of literacy work
- Medium
- Amount of numeracy work
- Medium
- Specification
- Open the specification
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3): One assessment criterion at each of Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3: list, outline or identify forms of income and spending, a place to save money or a saving method (Entry 2 and 3), and where to get financial help. Evidence is from centre devised assignments (Pearson's Authorised Assignment Brief can be used or adapted), internally assessed by the centre and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. Graded Pass or Fail. 10 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: One assessment criterion at each of Level 1 and Level 2: describe (Level 1) or explain (Level 2) sources of income and spending, methods of saving and investment, and sources of financial help. Evidence is from centre devised assignments, internally assessed by the centre and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. Graded Pass or Fail. 10 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Calculation
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Budgeting calculations and comparing costs
Annexe C names addition and subtraction, budgeting calculations, savings plans and comparing costs and interest rates as the numeracy links, and the Level 2 guidance gives weekly pocket money figures. No assessment criterion requires a calculation or a budget, so these are suggested only.
Numeracy: Financial literacy, Calculation
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils add up the cost of a school trip from a price list and work out the change from £50.
- Year 8
- Pupils compare the price per item of multipacks and single snacks from a supermarket website and decide which is best value.
- Year 9
- Pupils build a monthly budget for a 16 year old with a part time job, totalling income and spending and showing how much can be saved.
Show the specification wording and the LNF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit SfL 12, Essential information for assessment decisions, Entry 3 and Level 2, pages 60 to 61; Annexe C, page 162
“Addition/subtraction; budgeting calculations; savings plans; comparing costs and interest rates”
Progression step 3
I can add and subtract totals less than £100 using correct notation, e.g. £28.18 + £33.45.
I can make comparisons between prices and understand which is best value for money.
I can add and subtract numbers using whole numbers and decimals.
Progression step 4
I can carry out calculations relating to VAT, saving and borrowing.
I can use efficient written methods to add and subtract numbers and decimals of any size, including a mixture of large and small numbers with differing numbers of decimal places.
Good to know
- The unit is Unit SfL 12 with "10" guided learning hours in the unit summary (Section 3, page 5), half the 20 hours of the WJEC Financial literacy unit.
- A Pearson unit is achieved at one level only: "Learners can only achieve each unit once, at a single level" (Rules of Combination, page 6).
- Evidence can be written, spoken or visual: "For this unit there are no mandatory evidence requirements and centres can select the type of evidence" (Essential information for assessment decisions, page 60).
- No criterion asks for a budget or a calculation; the numeracy in Annexe C, "Addition/subtraction; budgeting calculations; savings plans; comparing costs and interest rates" (page 162), is suggested rather than required.
- The Level 2 guidance sets minimum counts, for example "at least three sources of income" and "at least three sources of financial help or guidance" (Essential information, Level 2, page 61).
- Research must be rewritten: "Evidence may come from research, but must be in learners' own words" (Essential information, Level 2, page 61).
- There is a missing word in the Entry 2 support guidance, which reads "can recognise when they sufficient/insufficient money" (Levels of supervision and support, page 62).
- Annexe E moves straight from SfL 5 to SfL 18 (page 172), so this unit has no Annexe E evidence row despite the unit text pointing to it (page 63).
Links with other qualifications
Income, saving, interest and investment risk link with WJEC GCSE Mathematics and Numeracy and WJEC Foundation Mathematics and Numeracy, which cover the calculations behind them in more depth, and the Pearson 'What matters' mapping is to Mathematics and Numeracy (page 63). WJEC GCSE Business covers sources of finance and risk from a business point of view. Compared with the WJEC Financial literacy unit, which is 20 hours and requires learners to plan, monitor and analyse a budget and work out the cost of borrowing, the Pearson unit is 10 hours, needs no budget or calculation in its criteria, and is mostly describing and explaining, so its numeracy demand is lower. The WJEC Skills Suite unit Business finance shares the saving and investment vocabulary.
Source: Pearson Entry Level 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life Award, Certificate and Diploma Qualifications specification, Issue 1, August 2026, Unit SfL 12: Financial literacy.