Financial Times Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign

It is now three years since the Financial Times launched its charitable initiative, the FT Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign, and over the past 12 months, we’re delighted to report huge strides in all aspects of our work.  

Alongside our ongoing efforts to build and enhance financial literacy among young people, this year marks a significant expansion of our adult education offerings, made possible through the generous support of a three-year grant from the Association of British Insurers (ABI). This initiative is designed to bolster the financial resilience of healthcare workers, service personnel, carers, hospitality staff, and those in precarious employment—individuals who have been particularly impacted by the pandemic and the ongoing cost of living crisis. We are delighted to be collaborating with the Armed Forces and other key employers to develop, test, and deliver new financial literacy resources that will help these communities build a more secure financial future. 

In light of the Government announcing its review of the national curriculum, we will be advocating, in partnership with like-minded organisations, for financial education to become a compulsory subject in secondary schools: universally offered, robustly taught, inclusive and modern. Central to this effort will be showcasing the positive impact that financial education has on young people’s lives—examples of which we have gathered from our programmes over the past year. 

This year,  we launched our full curriculum resources for free download on our online Learning Hub. The resources have been created by our team of experienced teachers, and endorsed by the PSHE Association, the resource quality assurer for personal, social, health and economic education in schools. They comprise a series of expertly crafted lessons for Year 7 to Year 13 students and are provided alongside a suite of ‘teacher toolkits’, empowering educators to deliver content with ease and confidence.  

We’ve made great strides in expanding the distribution of our curriculum across secondary schools this past year. Since the full curriculum was launched at the end of last year, over 475 educators from different schools have independently accessed FT FLIC resources through our Learning Hub. Our team has directly collaborated with 60 schools to implement the curriculum in their specific setting. This ranges from our three pilot schools that are implementing the full curriculum across all year groups, to other schools using the resources in one-off sessions such as assemblies. 

By promoting the resources through teacher conferences and outreach supported by the PSHE Association we have been able to rapidly scale our distribution to schools across the UK. Establishing strong relationships with multi-academy trusts across England has also enabled us to establish a coherent rollout within multiple settings. 

One of our pilot schools is Newcastle Sixth Form College, who has completed its first year of delivering the full FT FLIC curriculum.   

After a FLIC-delivered session in Newcastle in June 2024, 99% of 117 students correctly answered that UK income tax rates are progressive, meaning the more someone earns, the more they pay. 

89% of students correctly identified who they should contact if there is a problem with their payslip. 

We will continue to grow the number of secondary schools and students we reach with our curriculum across the four nations of the UK, with a special focus on recruiting schools in areas of high deprivation and settings serving students with special needs or disabilities. We have been working closely with the National Association for Special Educational Needs to assess the accessibility of our content and we are on track to have SEND quality assurance certification in the coming weeks.