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Personal Finance Award

Personal Finance person calculating figures

The Personal Finance Award at SCQF level 4 is jointly awarded by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) and the ifs School of Finance. It equips candidates with skills to understand and manage money throughout their lives.

Why deliver this qualification

The nature of the Award contributes to delivery of the four Curriculum for Excellence capacities.

The importance of financial education in schools is now widely recognised as an important and necessary life skill for young people. The Personal Finance award will equip candidates with the skills to cope confidently and effectively with basic financial encounters as well as managing money.

It allows a route to certification if your centre is already delivering personal finance education.

Who does the qualification suit

This qualification suits a wide range of candidates:

  • It is ideally suited for 14 to 16 year olds.
  • It suits centres focussed on developing basic life management skills
  • It adds extra breadth to those studying mathematics or business studies at SCQF levels 4, 5, or 6.
  • It provides progression in numeracy from SCQF Level 2 or 3.

Progression

Candidates could consider:

  • Intermediate 2 Skills for Work in Financial Services
  • The ifs School of Finance Certificate in Personal Finance (CPF2)
  • The Level 6 NPA in Financial Services
  • SVQ Providing Financial Services (available at Level 2 and 3)

Approval

If your centre is approved to offer the full range of auto approved products you are approved to deliver the Personal Finance Award.

Any other centres wishing to offer the new Personal Finance Award must complete the SA1 form Application for Approval to offer a Specific Qualification. Please contact our Business Development and Customer Support Team at mycentre@sqa.org.uk to obtain a copy of this form.

Assessment

The Personal Finance Award has been designed for on-line testing via SOLAR, SQA's platform for formative and summative e-assessment. The assessments are automatically marked and results given to learners immediately. Centres are responsible for uploading candidates and also processing the result through the normal SQA channels.

Formative assessments are available for the Units:

The summative assessments are pre-verified and therefore do not require internal or external verification pre or post delivery. The assessments themselves are generated dynamically from an itembank which means in practice that every learner gets their own unique assessment every time it is attempted.

The Principles of Money Unit assessment consists of 22 questions covering all 5 tasks, candidates must achieve a minimum of 50% in each of the tasks to achieve the Unit. 

The Money Management Unit assessment consists of 20 questions covering all 4 tasks, candidates must achieve a minimum of 50% in each of the tasks to achieve the Unit.

Assessments consist of the following types of questions: Multiple Choice (MCQ), Multiple Response (MRQ), Matching, Gapfill, Drag and Drop, and Re-order.

For further information about the Personal Finance Award and SOLAR please view the presentation from the Personal Finance Award events held in 2010 http://www.sqasolar.org.uk/mini/29432.html.

The SOLAR team are happy to answer any questions, and provide support. You can contact the SOLAR team at solar@sqa.org.uk.

Units and delivery tools

The Personal Finance Award (GA1Y 44) consists of the following Units:

You can access learning and teaching materials on the secure area of SQA’s website.

The content of the ifs School of Finance learning and teaching material is both appropriate and applicable to the Personal Finance Award. It should be noted, however, that the topics do not directly correlate with the Personal Finance Award Unit tasks. Centre staff should ensure that material used relates to the tasks given in the SQA Unit specifications.

Formative and summative assessments are available on SOLAR.

Related Websites

IFS School of Financeifs School of Finance

SQA is working in partnership with the ifs School of Finance to offer the Personal Finance Award to Scottish centres and candidates. The ifs School of Finance is an awarding body which specialises in financial education for a wide range of learners.

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