Updated: January 2025
The New Zealand curriculum alignment document has been updated to outline alignment with the Financial Maths strand in the curriculum refresh
Getting started with Banqer Primary made easy
Starting with Banqer Primary has never been easier! If you’re new to the platform and wondering how to plan your lessons, including which modules to activate and when, this guide will help you get started on the right foot.
Jump to section:
- How often should I do a full Banqer lesson?
- A full year with Banqer Primary
- One term with Banqer Primary
- Banqer Primary over other time periods
Curriculum planning made easy
Introducing a new tool like Banqer Primary into your classroom can be both exciting and overwhelming. Teachers often ask questions like: How does Banqer fit into the curriculum? How much time should I dedicate to it? How often should I teach a full lesson?
In this article, we answer those questions and perhaps some other questions you didn’t know you needed answering!
When planning Banqer lessons, we recommend starting with the Teacher Resource Hub (you'll need to be logged in). It is a self-service portal packed with heaps of already prepared, free material for you.
The three buttons at the top of the hub navigate straight to Banqer's essential planning documents, the Unit Plan, the Curriculum Alignment and the Banqer Module Progressions.
- The Unit Plan provides a holistic overview of each module. It includes links to full lesson plans, homework and worksheets/activities to accompany each module.
- The Curriculum Alignment outlines how student outcomes are connected to the Banqer Primary modules and links through to corresponding resources.
- The Banqer Module Progressions expand and reinforce the order of module activation, which is discussed further on.
How often should I do a full Banqer lesson?
How often you teach Banqer lessons depends on your class, schedule, and whether you use our lesson plans. Most teachers find success teaching a new lesson roughly every two weeks, using worksheets, extension activities, discussions, or optional homework in between to reinforce learning.
While it's not necessary to do a full lesson every week, your students will likely still want to log in, so we suggest setting aside time at least once a week, allowing them to check their progress and accounts.
With the exception of Basic Income and Expenses, we typically advise against enabling more than one module at a time. Activating a module makes its content accessible to students and prompts them to complete the associated quiz. Activating multiple modules at once may overwhelm your students and negatively impact their learning experience.
If you want to preview a module before deciding if it fits your plans, each module has a Teacher Intro Video, which shows and explains the content of the module you’re currently looking at (see image below).
A full year with Banqer Primary
This option gives you and your students the most time to explore the concepts introduced by Banqer and is our recommendation if time allows.
For your introductory lesson (or one closely following), this is the only time we recommend enabling two modules at once: Basic Income and Expenses. Enabling those first two modules together allows Banqer to run in the background over those first few weeks. Students can use this time to learn how to log in to their accounts, check that their income is coming in, and any expenses they’re incurring are being recorded correctly. Once you’re ready to move on, the next module we recommend enabling is Interest on Savings, with the continued progression detailed in the Banqer Module Progressions guide.
For Year 4 and below, the Property and Insurance modules may be a bit advanced, but for Years 5 - 8, we recommend working through all of the modules across the full year.
One term with Banqer Primary
A ten-week term provides a strong introduction to Banqer’s core concepts. What you teach depends on your available time, comfort level, class relevance, and student engagement. Below are structured examples based on different time allocations:
Example 1 (low time allocation)
- Enable Basic Income and Expenses together to introduce money basics.
- Add Interest on Savings to show how income, expenses, and savings work in the real world.
- Enable KiwiSaver / Superannuation to discuss long-term saving and retirement planning.
- Finish with Transport to explore vehicle costs (you have full control over vehicle pricing), and the importance of insurance.
Example 2 (moderate time allocation)
- Start with Basic Income and Expenses.
- Add Interest on Savings.
- Enable Careers & Employment to cover CV creation, job applications, and class jobs, rewarding effort with Banqer dollars weekly.
- Introduce KiwiSaver / Superannuation
- Add Property to explore mortgages and rental income. Your students can save up to buy an investment property and grow their net worth.
- Enable the Term Deposits module to explore concepts around ‘good interest’ and how your students can earn money on top of the basic income or classroom jobs
- Finish with Transport to explore vehicle costs and insurance.
Banqer Primary over other time periods
Do you have more than a term but less than a year? Or maybe you’ve heard about and jumped on Banqer later in the year? Our team would be happy to support you with a PD session!
We can work with you to custom-tailor a progression plan that works for your class and your available time.
To learn more about how Banqer Primary works in classrooms around the country, explore the Banqer educator success stories.
