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 Reading strategies
-
Reading and explaining sources of financial help
Learners state a place to get financial help from Entry 1, describe two sources and when they are useful after research at Level 1, and at Level 2 explain at least three sources, what help each gives and the benefits of guidance, including the difference between regulated and informal advice. This is required by the assessment criteria.
Literacy: Reading strategies, Understanding, response and analysis
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils scan a leaflet about money help for young people and list who they could ask and how to contact them.
- Year 8
- Pupils read the MoneyHelper page on saving and summarise three pieces of advice in their own words.
- Year 9
- Pupils compare advice on saving from a regulated adviser's website and from a social media post, and explain which is more reliable and why.
Show the specification wording and the LNF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit SfL 12, Assessment criteria, page 59; Essential information for assessment decisions, Entry 1 to Level 2, pages 60 to 62
“This may include the difference between regulated advice and informal advice from people such as family or teachers.”
Progression step 3
I can use a range of strategies for finding information, e.g. skimming for gist, scanning for detail.
I can make use of reference/digital sources to select, summarise and synthesise information, referencing as appropriate.
Progression step 4
I can research a wide range of reference and digital sources to develop a full understanding of a topic or issue.
I can evaluate the usefulness and reliability of texts.
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.