vida teacher on stage during a workshop

We build financial futures

Our workshops empower young women to own their money choices

Curriculum Levels

Our curriculum gives you the flexibility to build your perfect workshop

Our four curriculum levels are filled with all the things we wish we were all taught at school. It builds upon four different levels to cater for students of different year levels and stages of their money journeys.

Level 01

Recommended for Years 9 and 10 students

Ease into money basics.

We start by learning to set savings goals, keeping track of the money we spend and borrow, and grasping interest rate, tax and superannuation basics.

Download Level 01 topics
Level 02

Recommended for Years 10 and 11 students

Dive a little deeper.

At this stage, students learn to keep themselves safe financially and dive deeper into topics covered in the previous level for a better understanding of Australia’s economy and its financial institutions.

Download Level 02 topics
Level 03

Recommended for Years 11 and 12 students

Take control of your money journey.

Long-term planning is an underlying theme in each of these topics, ranging from choosing a preferred superfund, to HECS, BNPL, investing basics and more!

Download Level 03 topics
Level 04

Recommended for Year 12 and university students aged 18-25

Plan for a future after school.

Here, we arm students with the knowledge to seek financial guidance and lay the foundations for a healthy financial future throughout adulthood!

Download Level 04 topics
Our school workshops and programs are tailored specifically to individual year levels.

We teach young women the basics in the classroom, then recruit them after their final year of secondary school as facilitators to pass on their knowledge to younger year levels.

This is how our virtuous cycle works - we give so that your girls can give back!

Young women from Victoria’s leading girls’ schools learn with vida

Melbourne Girls’ Grammar
Presbyterian Ladies College
Ruyton Girls’ School
SHC Geelong
The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School
We recognise that parents play a critical role in their child’s financial health.

Our parent workshops equip parents with helpful pointers and strategies to guide their daughters through each stage of their personal finance journeys. These supplementary seminars are based on the four levels of our curriculum.

We collaborate with School Councils and Boards to plan and design these workshops on behalf of parents.

Learning about financial literacy doesn’t stop after high school.

In fact, money and adulting go hand-in-hand. That’s why our workshops for young women aged 18-25 are so popular!

We’re trusted to work with several local organisations across Victoria

How it works

Step 01

Start here!

Download our entire Curriculum Brochure here to learn more about our curriculum and workshops, and for a detailed breakdown of workshop formats, levels, topics and our pedagogical style. Our brochure will help you fill out our workshop booking form

Step 02

Book your first workshop

Love what you see in our Curriculum Brochure? Fill out our booking form here to book your first virtual or in-person workshop with us.

Step 03

We’ll prepare a quote

We’ll personally reach out to you after receiving your booking form. We work collaboratively with each school to ensure our workshops are as accessible as possible

Step 04

Pre-workshop surveys

Our pre-workshop surveys measure students’ objective and subjective levels of financial well-being, and give the best indication of the money topics they’re most curious about. We’ll fill you in on this step after we personally reach out to you.

Step 05

After the workshop

We’ll send around feedback forms, take-home notes, detailed Q&A handouts and ‘next steps’ with step-by-step guides to keep the money conversations going at home.

Step 06

Repeat for next season

If you’re booking on behalf of your school, we’ll recruit from your Year 12 cohort to join us as facilitators for future years. It’s all part of vida’s virtuous cycle!

Attendees love us

Here’s what 500+ awesome workshop attendees have said about us:

96%

Said complex financial concepts were explained in an easy-to-digest manner.

91%

were “extremely likely” to recommend our workshops to a friend

86%

said the difficulty of the workshop was pitched to their level of understanding, and that they could easily clear up any areas of confusion

2x

on average, students more than double their knowledge and confidence in basic financial concepts across our whole curriculum.

You ask, we answer

Frequently Asked Questions

How was vida’s curriculum curated?
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Our evidence-based curriculum includes almost 40 topics and is segmented into four levels designed to chart the start of a young woman’s personal finance journey from 14 to 25. Our topics are centered around four money themes: saving, spending, investing and borrowing.

Our curriculum is closely aligned with the 2011 National Consumer and Financial Literacy Framework, ASIC’s 2018 Financial Literacy Strategy and the most recent iteration of PISA’s OECD Financial Literacy Strategy.

How long does a workshop run for?
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Our school and parent workshops typically run for 40 to 60 minutes during a school period, lunchtime or evening (for parents) session. Workshops for tertiary students are usually 60 minutes in length, but our timings are very flexible; organisations have previously booked 90 minute workshops with us!

How much does it cost to attend a workshop?
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We offer a tiered pricing system and a discount if you book a bundle (3+) of workshops. Contact us at schools@vidamelb.com or organisations@vidamelb.com to get your personalised quote today!

I’m confused about [insert personal finance topic here]! Who can I get in touch with to write an explainer post?
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Two of the things we love most at vida are answering your questions and writing crash courses! We know how confusing the wider world of money can be, so shoot us an email at info@vidamelb.com, DM us @vidamelb on Insta or fill out our form on our Get in touch page with your questions and we’ll whip together a post ASAP!

Who was Vida Goldstein?
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As a women’s rights trailblazer renowned for her kindness, compassion and generosity, Vida Goldstein was one of the leading faces of Victoria’s century suffragette movement throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. She was one of the first women to stand for federal election and ran for federal parliament five times!

Vida was encouraged to become economically and financially independent from a young age and campaigned extensively for the complete equality of men and women. In particular, she advocated for a removal of the gender pay gap, a fair redistribution of wealth and the appointment of women to senior leadership roles - causes we still fight for today!

If you’d like to learn more about Vida, check out the first episode of the ABC’s Ms Represented documentary, which aired in July 2021

How many workshops can my school/organisation book?
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We aim to run at least two workshops per year level and organisation.

Do you offer any personalised financial advice?
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We do not offer any personalised financial advice. We’re an educational initiative aimed at improving and building awareness around our money choices. Our workshops, schools programs and online content provide general financial advice and are designed to equip young people with the basic skills, knowledge and attitudes to kickstart their personal finance journeys. We are not licensed financial professionals and do not advertise on behalf of financial providers and services. If you are looking for personalised financial advice, we strongly recommend that you speak to a licensed professional.

Can young men attend your workshops?
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Absolutely! We encourage young men to come along to our workshops for three reasons:

Young men are equally as likely as young women to miss out on financial education in the classroom, particularly in co-educational schools.

Eliminating the gender wealth gap is everybody’s business, and we feel that men deserve to be included in the fight for a more gender-equal financial future.

We also want to rectify the gendered imbalance in personal finance knowledge so that couples are in lockstep when making key financial decisions. Research conducted by Relationships Australia shows that there’s a clear need for ‘money-proofing’ relationships; financial stress is the primary cause of relationship breakdowns nationwide!

How often do you run workshops for parents?
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Parent workshops are designed to supplement our workshops for secondary school students and are run at the school’s discretion. We aim to run at least one parent workshop per school.