Buy Smart Program guide for teachers and supervisors
Helping young people to be smart consumers
Young people are already active in the marketplace and increasingly exposed to consumer issues. They need to develop good consumer habits and responsible attitudes toward money so they can navigate the choices and pitfalls—right now and into their adult lives.
The Buy Smart Program provides tools for teachers, supervisors and other educators to help your students learn more about issues like:
- budgeting and saving
- avoiding scams
- seeking a refund
- making major purchases (such as a first car or mobile phone).
Classroom presentations
We can deliver an engaging and interactive presentation about one of our Buy Smart topics. All presentations are free and available via school incursion or videoconference.
Our topics are tailored to different year levels from Years 4 to 12 and cover a range of content including:
- scam awareness
- consumer rights and responsibilities
- understanding advertising
- managing money.
We can also present on these topics to clubs or organisations that support young people. Contact us to find out more.
Learn more about our classroom presentations.
Pre-recorded videos of our presentations are also available through our Buy Smart Online channel.
The Buy Smart Competition
The Buy Smart Competition is a hands-on learning activity that asks students to design a creative project to explain a consumer issue.
It offers a total of $15,000 in cash prizes for the winning schools and students.
Teachers or supervisors can use 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 to learn life skills in a fun and creative way
- as a creative activity for after-school care, holiday activity groups or youth organisations.
You can also choose to place additional restrictions on your students' entries (such as nominating a specific topic area or project type) in order to satisfy your teaching objectives.
Find out more about the task, judging criteria and how to enter.
Buy Smart Online
As part of the overall program, Buy Smart Online offers ready-made video resources suitable for online learning and remote delivery for students in Years 4 to 12.
Resources include video presentations based on existing incursion topics on a range of learning areas.
Follow these links to access the year-level playlist suitable for your students:
- Upper primary years (Years 4 to 6)
- Middle years (Years 7 to 9)
- Senior secondary years (Years 10 to 12)
Activities, worksheets and resources
Our extensive range of teachers' resources are available to download. They include worksheets, lesson plans, puzzles and games, and more.