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Romy, a Junior School Teacher in Sydney, recently introduced Banqer to the Year 6 cohort, “I enjoy applying an entrepreneurial lens to education and having heard about Banqer I was excited about adding a real-life context to our existing financial literacy programme”
Revitalizing the Year 6 Maths Curriculum with Banqer
Romy’s colleagues were very open-minded and supportive of the idea of trying something new, so Romy reached out to the team at Banqer. “I had a thirty-minute session with Madeleine and then I showcased the platform in a twenty-minute team meeting and encouraged the other Year 6 teachers to have a play. That’s all it took! We decided to integrate Banqer into our maths time, dedicating two to three hours a week over an eight-week term.” From the start, Romy found Banqer easy to use,
It was incredible how easy it was to navigate, both for us as teachers and for the students. The videos were brilliant for introducing the expansions and the Banqer activities were an excellent starting point, helping students to understand the real life application of Year 6 maths.
“Banqer created relatable, real-world scenarios for our students, building on our previous programme’s strong focus on the mathematics underpinning financial literacy.”
“As a class we used the contexts provided by Banqer to take the maths even further, for example exploring the impact of different interest rates and comparing term deposits.”
Banqer proved to be a perfect match for the Year 6 Maths curriculum, “Every expansion was appropriate to Year 6, there were opportunities for differentiation, and I found the students had a strong interest in the subject. There was a lot of collaboration and the discussion was constant. You would overhear the students talking about whether they should cancel their term deposit at recess and over lunch. It was very sweet!”
Empowering students to take control of their money
Beyond reinforcing the maths curriculum, Banqer has made a significant impact on students' understanding of financial literacy. Banqer helped students realise that their early financial decisions could significantly shape their future, yet they also understood they had room for adjustments down the line. One of the most valuable lessons the students learned was that the person on the highest salary wasn’t always the person with the most wealth and that the smartest people weren’t always the most successful.
We were all astonished how much the children learned about money’s place in society but in a way that didn’t put the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Next-level student engagement
For Romy, the biggest testament to the effectiveness of Banqer was the buzz it created outside the classroom. “We had staff and students from across the school asking us what on earth we were doing in class because they had students talking about interest rate rises and property prices! I think the students developed an understanding and empathy to what they were hearing on the news about cost of living rises. It really opened their eyes and they wanted to talk about it.”
The popularity of Banqer was further evidenced at the end of the year, “Students complete a survey and one of the questions is ‘What will you remember most about Year 6?’ When looking at the results, our Head of Analytics spotted that Banqer kept popping up and he came to me wanting to find out what had so resonated with them – and to check the spelling!”
Romy’s school have plans to further integrate Banqer into Year 6, “Banqer has proven to be an invaluable and captivating financial program that has significantly enhanced the learning experience of my students, and the team behind it are incredible.”
Thanks to our Champion Partner, Netwealth, Banqer is available to primary schools across Australia at no cost.
