FINANCIAL EDUCATION KS2 - CASE STUDY

A series of eight short animated films aimed at 7-11-year-old children. As part of the same commission, we also produced two films aimed at 5-7-year-olds which can be found here: Financial Education KS1.

The way that children interact with money today is very different from the experience of previous generations. Cash has all but disappeared and money is managed and spent through digital devices. This makes it challenging for children to get a grip on the basics. Mobile payments, online banking and in-app purchases affect their understanding of value and make spending decisions more opaque. These innovations make financial education in primary schools more important than ever.

BBC Teach commissioned us to make a series of ten short animated films for teaching financial education to 5–11-year-olds. The animations were designed to be used by teachers in the classroom to initiate lessons and to spark discussion. The BBC partnered with Young Enterprise on the commissioning of the project and the content was built around their ‘Financial Education Planning Framework’.

Our educational advisor identified which parts of the framework would be of most use to teachers in the classroom. Lots of resources already existed for maths but there was a shortage of anything on the PSHE (personal, social, and health education) front.

We explored a number of different narrative approaches to try to find the best way to bring a potentially dull subject to life. Whilst it would have been fun to make the stories fantastical, we all felt they would be more effective if we kept them relatable to the target audience. We created four main characters, friends who are a couple of years older than the target audience, so that they feel cool and aspirational, but also friendly and safe to spend time with. We wrote character-led stories to dramatise situations relating to the financial topics.

In several of the stories, the main character breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewer directly. This makes the films feel modern and appealing. It also creates an atmosphere of peer-to-peer learning and allows us to explain parts of the educational content more comprehensively without using a traditional third-person narrator.

Many of the films are intentionally left somewhat open ended. This is because we wanted the content to open up classroom discussions. Using a story with a traditional structure, which concluded with a ‘right’ answer would tend to close down discussions.

The look of characters is vital for getting the audience to bond with them. We developed bold and distinctive designs for the four main characters. We then adapted the designs into expressive 2D character rigs capable of portraying a range of emotions and creating dynamic, engaging performances.

Our stories take place in relatable locations (home, shops, school, public transport etc.) that would feel familiar to the audience. The background artwork was created with a minimal level of detail and restricted colour palettes so that the focus would always be on the characters.

A very strong set of animated films that fulfil a previously unmet need in children’s education in the UK. They have recently been released on BBC Teach and we can’t wait to hear how they are received by teachers.

The video above is a collection of clips from the series.