Children come into contact with money already at an early age, for example when spending money or in the grocery store. A large number of studies show that financial education, especially amongst children of kindergarten and primary school age, has positive effects. It is beneficial for financial literacy as children grow older and can have a preventive effect.
For this reason, the Swiss Finance Museum has been committed to the topic of financial education for years. Together with SIX, the Swiss Finance Museum wants to promote financial literacy and money management among children during Swiss Money Week 2023. As part of this year's Swiss Money Week, over 140 Zurich primary school children were involved in the program organized by the Finance Museum and SIX.
Source: Collage of the 1st grade, Letten School, Zurich
Lower grade: Money collages
In the weeks leading up to Swiss Money Week, the lower grade classes worked diligently on their creative collages on the topic of money and submitted them in advance. In the children's workshop itself, the collages were discussed together with the workshop leader.
Guiding questions were, for example:
- When do I encounter money?
- What do I associate with money?
Middle school: Budgeting competition
An absolute highlight was the award ceremony for the budgeting competition in the auditorium at SIX ConventionPoint. Around 100 children from five primary school classes in the Zurich region came joined the event on site. The competition had already been announced last fall. The task was to create a possible budget for a class camp. Not only the budget was important for the evaluation, but also the associated documentation, which also had to be submitted. The different steps and decisions that were made were relevant to the evaluation: How did the school children do their research? What pros and cons were weighed? What criteria were important to the class - as cheap as possible, as environmentally friendly as possible, etc.?
The six school classes participating in the competition all worked on their own class camp in the weeks leading up to Swiss Money Week.
SIX is committed to a long-term sustainability strategy. As part of this, we are committed to helping more people build up financial knowledge in a targeted way. And it makes a lot of sense to start with children. I'm very pleased to have been able to represent SIX as a jury member at Swiss Money Week; I was impressed by the children's great performance in our budget competition
Fabienne Strobel, Head Sustainability of SIX
The budgets and documentation were judged by a jury consisting of Marianne Ringger, representing the Zurich City School Board, Fabienne Strobel, Head of Sustainability at SIX, and Andrea Weidemann, Director of the Swiss Finance Museum.
The Swiss Money Week organized by the Swiss Finance Museum and SIX is an important project for our children to deal with the topic of money and budgeting at an early age. Especially in a time when everything is available and great things are smiling at us on every corner, it is important to sensitize children and young people to this topic at an early age. It is the responsibility of the home and school to regularly exchange ideas on this and to accompany the children. I was fascinated by the many great entries from the school classes. With how much zeal and perseverance they tackled the topic and learned a lot in the process through mutual exchange
Marianne Ringger, Specialist for the Promotion of Giftedness, Zurich City School Board
The winners
All submissions were of good quality, so it was not easy for the jury to award the podium places - after all, it was the comprehensibility and the discussions held in the classes about budgeting the class camp that tipped the scales.
- School Chriesiweg, 6th class of Mrs. A. Meier
- School Laubegg, class 4/5f by Mrs. L. Aerni
- School Blumenfeld, class 5 by Mrs. X. Kadriji
n evaluating the submissions, we paid particular attention to how the classes addressed the issue of budget and money and came to a common consensus for camp planning. Our desire was for all participating students to take something away from the project for their personal future, and for the complex topic of money to be reflected upon in a variety of ways.
Andrea Weidemann, Director of Swiss Finance Museum
Impressions
Video
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1. Preis: Schule Chriesiweg, 6. Klasse von Frau A. Meier
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2. Preis: Schule Laubegg, Klasse 4/5f von Frau L. Aerni
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3. Preis: Schule Blumenfeld, 5. Klasse von Frau X. Kadriji
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Gallery
About the Swiss Money Week
Swiss Money Week 2023 is the Swiss subsidiary event of Global Money Week, which will take place from March 20 to 26, 2023. It is an annual, international campaign that raises awareness of financial topics among children and young people. After all, financial education cannot be started early enough.
The week is organized by the OECD International Network on Financial Education. In Switzerland, the Swiss National Bank SNB is taking on the role of national coordinator. The Swiss Finance Museum and SIX are teaming up to support the campaign.