How We Know Financial Education Is Making a Difference
In this article, Lizzie Moffat, Insights Manager at Just Finance Foundation (JFF), shares how we currently measure the real-world impact of our financial education work and the difference it is making in schools across the UK. From knowledge and confidence building to behaviour change, find out what’s working and where we can go further - together.
why insights matter
At JFF we believe that helping children understand how and why we make money choices from a young age builds their confidence to make informed financial decisions throughout life. This belief shapes both our education programmes and how we measure impact. We look beyond financial knowledge to understand how children feel and behave towards money.
As an insight led organisation, measuring impact is central to our work. Good evidence helps us: refine and improve what we do, to ensure we use resources effectively; share best practice and contribute to the UK financial education evidence base; and demonstrate to our funders and partners the difference their support is making.
With our focus on long term change with primary aged children, impact measurement is complex, but essential, and certainly makes my job extremely interesting! Here are some of our top tips for securing great learning in financial education.
Our current Approach to Measuring Financial Education Impact
In order for our work to help the most children and effect sustainable change, we support the trusted adults in children’s lives, to talk and teach them about money confidently. This means supporting schools, families and communities.
Our main programme, Lifesavers, equips teachers with training and access to a range of classroom ready resources, that support the different ways children learn, making it engaging and easy for teachers to use and embed.
To help us measure the impact of our work, we developed a financial education outcomes framework structured around three strands which grow progressively with age: Think (Skills), Feel (Emotions),and Do (Behaviours). Think is about developing children’s understanding about money management; Feel is about helping children understand how emotions and values influence money decisions; and Do is supporting children to feel confident talking about and engaging with money and taking part in real-world finance behaviours such as saving, budgeting and enterprise activities.
Developing children’s understanding about money management.
Helping children understand how emotions and values influence money decisions.
Supporting children to feel confident talking about and engaging with money and taking part in real-world finance behaviours such as saving, budgeting and enterprise activities.
We currently measure progress primarily through an annual teacher survey linked to this framework. Teachers know their pupils best and are well placed to assess changes in their learning outcomes.
As our model is train-the-trainer, we have also developed a teacher outcomes framework which develops progressively based on teachers’ engagement with financial education. It is structured around their skills, mindset and capacity. Measurement focuses on teacher confidence to teach about money and how they are incorporating and embedding financial education.
Alongside the quantitative data, teachers are generous in providing rich qualitative feedback to our open text questions, which bring the data to life in terms of stories and examples from the classroom. We supplement this further with depth interviews that provide richer case studies. I’m someone who loves analysing all the data, but the real privilege of my role is hearing directly from teachers and children about the difference our programme is making.
What we’re learning so far
551 schools have accessed LifeSavers, meaning over 135k pupils had the chance to build essential money skills
100% of teachers report increased money conversations in school which means thousands of children are talking more about money, and these conversations are happening at schools across every part of the UK
97% say the programme has increased their confidence to teach financial education
78% of teachers regularly incorporate financial education into lessons
93% use two or more LifeSavers resources
Teachers want resources that are easy to use, save them time, and are interactive, accessible and relevant for children
Teachers tell us that, using our programme, pupils:
Develop a strong grounding in money basics: 100% of teachers teaching children aged 8+ agreed our resources helped their students describe wants vs needs and the different uses of money
‘Learners are able to discuss the importance of saving and budgeting and state reasons why we need to be responsible with money.’ - Lauren Manning, Subject/Phase Lead, North East
Better understand the link between money, values and emotions: 98% of teachers teaching children aged 8+ agreed that our resources helped their students describe the link between their personal values and money decisions, and their own aspirations and goals
‘[LifeSavers money lessons] engaged with the children and led them to considering their thoughts, feelings and experiences about money and how these may differ to their friends and peers.’ - Julie Randall, Phase Lead, Acre Heads Primary School, Yorkshire.
Feel more confident talking about money: 98% of teachers teaching children aged 8+ agreed our resources had helped their students engage in broad range of money topics.
‘This package has been great for my students who are much more confidentin discussing money and finances.’ SLT, Eastern England
Engage more actively in practical financial activities:‘Children enjoy the responsibility of being Year 5 Bankers and those children that save money, look forward to visiting the savings club which is held weekly in our school.’ - Subject/Phase Lead, London
Feedback from teachers directly informs our development work, including the redesign of our new 5 Big Questions resources and Milo’s Money. Supplementing what teachers tell us about how they use the programme, with what we know about schools from government data, and our internal insights from engagement activity, is helping us to learn about different audience needs and explore how we can use this to enhance our support and communications.
Strengthening Our Impact Evaluation and Evidence Base
We are continuing to deepen our understanding of impact. Going forward, we’re keen to:
quantify the shift in children’s attitudes and behaviours from using our programme and explore any difference in impact across different groups of children;
identify enablers and barriers to embedding financial education; and
understand how resource use, frequency, and teacher and parent engagement influence outcomes.
Research with primary aged children in schools can present challenges, so we’re testing different research methodologies this year to inform a longer term study. If you would like to know more about how you could support this work, either as a funder or participating as a school, please get in touch.
Interested in learning more about our impact? Look out for our 2025 Impact Report, publishing later in March, which will include all our impact measurement for the year. Sign up to receive news from us or follow us on social media so you don’t miss it.
As we expand our work with parents and communities, rigorous impact measurement and evaluation will be central to our design. Our impact measurement and strengthening this, helps us to be most effective, and to do what matters most: make meaningful financial education an everyday part of growing up.
Lizzie Moffat
Insights Manager at Just Finance Foundation, Lizzie leads on evaluation, research and impact measurement to understand how financial education is changing young lives. Lizzie works closely with schools, partners and expert colleagues to turn data and insights into practical improvements across our financial education programmes. With a strong background in insights and analysis, Lizzie is passionate about using evidence to strengthen financial education and improve the future wellbeing of young people.