Inside Life Lessons PSHE Curriculum: The new Aspiration and Money Unit

Here at Life Lessons, we’ve been developing a PSHE curriculum designed to inspire and empower young people to think about their futures in a positive way. Through our new Aspiration and Money unit, which will run from Year 1 to Year 13, young people will be given the confidence and tools to feel excited about the career, education and personal opportunities that are in front of them. 

Why the Aspiration and Money unit is needed

We recognise that young people do not always have positive aspirations for their future, or feel a strong sense of purpose. This is often because they are not given the opportunity to develop a sense of their own talents and skills, with an understanding of what a successful life might look like, beyond exams and the immediate next step on their educational journey.

Our curriculum considers the emotional world and lived experience of young people. The Life Lessons Aspiration and Money unit aims to:

This is a series of lessons that touches on many different aspects of a young person’s development, and exists to:

• Help young people understand themselves, their brains, their skills and their interests
• Support young people to dream as well as set ambitious and realistic goals
• Show students the full breadth of career and work opportunities, including the possibility of jobs that do not yet exist
• Plan future learning pathways, including school subject choices, further education, apprenticeships, university and work experience
• Understand the world of work and how to thrive in it
• Understand how to manage money day-to-day and in long-term financial planning
• Decide what they want to contribute to the world
• Have a positive vision of their future

As mentioned in a previous post, PSHE education should be applicable to young people’s reality. Frequently, young people ask us what their future will look like and how they can thrive in it; we should rise to the challenge of this question, by giving them meaningful advice, practical skills and a chance to explore their own talents and dreams. This way, they can invest in themselves, and cultivate more intrinsic motivations for their studies, careers and personal pursuits.

How we choose new lesson content

We build our lessons with the psychological world of young people at the centre of our thinking. Talking to experts in the field, such as Sophie-Lauren McPhee, we have ensured that every part of the learning is rooted in a conceptual model of the self. Our lessons explore how this sense of self relates to other people and society more widely, as explained by this diagram:

When deciding what to include in our lessons, we ensure that we cover all of the objectives from the PSHE Association’s programme of study. Another source of advice comes from our Expert Advisory Board, made up of school leaders and PSHE specialists who advise us on how to understand the needs of schools, in terms of coverage, communication and delivery.

What is in our Aspiration and Money curriculum?

By listening to expert advisors, and talking to young people, we devised a set of curriculum contexts for our Aspiration and Money unit, which ground the learning in tangible, everyday experiences:

The above contexts are explored, using eight curriculum themes, where students can develop practical knowledge and skills that will help them with their day-to-day lives, now and into their independent futures.

To find out more about our curriculum development process or to bring our revolutionary and forward facing Aspiration and Money curriculum to your school, visit our website or book a consultation now.