Buy Smart Program guide for teachers and educators
Young people are active in the marketplace and increasingly exposed to consumer issues. They need to develop good spending habits and responsible attitudes toward money so they can navigate the choices and pitfalls of being a consumer—right now and into their adult lives.
The Buy Smart Program equips teachers, parents, community education supervisors and other educators with the tools and resources to help young people on this journey. Through interactive presentations, educational resources and the annual Buy Smart Competition, the program builds consumer awareness and helps young people make informed decisions about money.
Program overview
The Buy Smart Program invites young people to explore key consumer topics, including:
- budgeting and saving
- avoiding scams
- seeking a refund
- making major purchases (such as a first car or mobile phone).
Watch our introductory video to learn how the program can be used to teach students about consumer issues.
Introduction to the Buy Smart Program for parents, teachers and supervisors
Hi teachers and parents. My name is Chris Spensley and I'm from the Office of Fair Trading.
I'm delighted to introduce you, or welcome you back, to our Buy Smart Program.
The Buy Smart Program provides tools for teachers, supervisors and other educators to help students in years 4 to 12 learn more about consumer issues such as:
- budgeting and saving
- securing a refund
- making major purchases such as a first car, and
- avoiding scams.
Young people are already an active part of the marketplace and they're increasingly exposed to its risks.
Developing good consumer habits and responsible attitudes towards money will help them with navigating their choices and the pitfalls, both right now and into their adult lives.
Our program brings these concepts into the classroom in a fun, engaging and interactive way.
Buy Smart is aligned to the Australian Curriculum, supports the National Consumer and Financial Literacy Framework and is easy to implement into the classroom.
The Program has been designed to support student learning from years 4 to 12 in a range of Australian Curriculum learning areas such as: Mathematics, English, Humanities and Social Sciences, Digital technologies and Media Arts, as well as senior syllabus areas such as: Business and Legal studies.
The possibilities are endless as to how you want to implement the program, whether as an assessment piece, reinforcement tool, framework for subject work, as an extracurricular activity, or as a life skills education piece.
You might want to fill a one-off lesson by handing out our downloadable puzzle book. Or you could base an entire unit of subject work on our resources, which you can download from our teaching guides online.
If you head to the teachers' area of our website, we have information and resources dedicated to helping you implement the program, including:
- lesson plans
- teacher kits
- teaching guides, and
- Australian Curriculum course codes for your subject area and for your year level category.
Our teacher kits for primary and secondary include:
- both teacher-led and independent activities
- examples of how to use the program
- links to more resources, and
- information on our school incursion sessions.
We even have interviews with teachers that have used the program in the past to help get you started. Or you could always call us to discuss.
The Buy Smart Program is designed to build life skills and motivate young people to think about important financial and consumer issues, such as:
- buying your first car
- signing up to a mobile phone plan
- staying safe when shopping online, or
- knowing when you're entitled to get a refund.
Whether it's at home or in the classroom, the program is limitless as to its implementation possibilities, including the ability for it to be used as an online learning resource.
It doesn't matter if the work hasn't been set by the school. If you're looking for something that's both fun and educational for your kids, the Buy Smart Program has a wealth of entertaining and informative activities.
Homeschooled students are of course more than welcome to participate.
You can access or download the teacher resources as well as the student resources on the getting started section of our website.
Students can also get started on making an entry into the program's Buy Smart Competition for a chance to win prize money for themselves and for their school.
Our website shows off some of our favourite examples of winning entries, so head over there for a great head start.
The best place to start is on our Buy Smart website. You can find everything you need regarding the program, the competition and our resources.
The Buy Smart Competition asks students to create a project to illustrate a consumer or financial literacy issue for a chance to win a share of over $15,000 dollars. It's a great way to get students to start to think about these issues and, of course, who doesn't love to win a prize?
Once you've had a look through our website, you can download one of our teachers' kits. We have kits for primary and secondary teachers—and they are a great place to get started.
Once social distancing restrictions have been relaxed and students are able to return to school the Buy Smart team will be back out there visiting schools and clubs all across Queensland. We'll be giving free presentations on various Buy Smart topics.
In the meantime, students can access our pre-recorded presentation video series. This online learning series can help you continue to incorporate the Buy Smart Program into a classroom, as well as for remote learning or home schooling.
Some of our topics include:
- sneaky scammers for years 4 to 6
- consumer rights for years 7 to 9, and
- buying your first car for years 10 to 12.
While these presentations are a great way to kickstart your Buy Smart journey and spark inspiration for any Buy Smart Competition entry ideas, they are also easy learning tools.
We will be constantly adding to our collection of presentations across the age categories of upper primary, middle years and upper secondary.
You will be able to find our available presentations on our website and on our YouTube channel.
Our virtual presentations are usually about 20 minutes long and accompanied by downloadable activities to encourage interactive and ongoing learning.
I hope this video has given you an overview of our Buy Smart Program, competition, available resources and videos.
Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us for more tailored information on how to best use our resources.
We are looking forward to seeing your students' Buy Smart entries and hearing about any in-class discussions that you have.
Stay in touch by signing up to our e-newsletter on our website where we will send you updates and ideas for Buy Smart throughout the year. Or you can follow along through the Office of Fair Trading's social media channels.
Most importantly, we are looking forward to educating young consumers about their rights and responsibilities to ensure a safe and fair marketplace for future Queensland consumers and businesses.
Interactive presentations
Our free presentations are a popular feature of the Buy Smart Program, with sessions delivered in an interactive and age-appropriate format for students in Years 4 to 12. Each topic aligns with relevant curriculum or pastoral care objectives for targeted year levels, and cover essential consumer topics such as money management, scam awareness and consumer rights.
Find more information or request a presentation.
Educational resources
The Buy Smart Program offers a range of free resources to support teachers and educators. These include:
- teacher resource packs aligned to the Australian Curriculum v9.0 for Year 4 to 10
- a suite of video resources
- access to the range of Office of Fair Trading resources and factsheets for consumers and businesses.
Access Buy Smart teaching resources.
Buy Smart Competition
A key part of the program is the Buy Smart Competition, which is open to students in Years 4 to 12. The competition has run annually in schools throughout Queensland since 2002.
Teachers and supervisors can set a Buy Smart Competition project:
- to assess subject knowledge and comprehension, ability to research and communicate an issue and/or ability to produce a particular type of project
- as a framework for a unit of work, an exercise within an existing unit or an extension activity for high-achieving students
- to help students in learning support programs learn life skills in a fun and creative way
- as a creative activity for after-school care, holiday groups or youth organisations.
You can also add restrictions around your students' entries—such as nominating a specific topic area or project type—to line up with your teaching objectives.
It has a prize pool of over $15,000—students can win up to $500 for themselves and $2,000 for their school.
Read more about the Buy Smart Competition, including the judging criteria and how to enter.