What your child learns, and how the hour is spent.
Three programs cover Grades 1 to 12. Every one follows the same calendar, the same class shape and the same seven strands, each going a level deeper every year.
- Little GeniusGrades 1 to 4An introduction to money, work, fairness and the idea of making something people want, built from coins, jars, class stores and simple agreements.See the year
- Big GeniusGrades 5 to 8The seven strands in full for the first time: money, mortgages and credit, jobs, taxes, law, real estate and business, each going deeper every year.See the year
- Senior ScholarsGrades 9 to 12The same seven strands at the level a young adult needs: paystubs, leases, capital gains, investing, a full financial plan, and what it means to sue and be sued.See the year
The one-hour class
Twenty minutes of teaching with slides on the wall, twenty minutes of paper worksheet, twenty minutes of review. Two classes a week, all year. No homework, nothing to mark, nothing to bring.
- 20minTeaching
- 20minWorksheet
- 20minReview
- One hour
- twice a week, all year
- 10 or fewer
- students in most classes
- Paper and pencil
- no tablets, no homework
- Certified teachers
- Ontario Certified Teacher or Registered ECE
Two grades share a classroom, and each grade has a base level and an advanced level, so a student who stays a second year in the same room meets the same strands at the next depth rather than repeating them.
Families can join at the start of any month. A student joining mid-year picks up the current theme. Students who attend the full year write the December completion exam, with an 80 per cent pass mark, and receive a certificate.
Parents shape the curriculum. Every family can suggest topics from their portal, and we publish what we add each term.
Every class is taught by an Ontario Certified Teacher or a Registered Early Childhood Educator. Slides, worksheet and answer key are prepared for every lesson, so the teacher’s hour goes to the students.
Classes are held in private classrooms. Our supervision runs from sign-in at the start of class to the end of class; parents are responsible for their child outside that window, and are welcome to stay on the premises.
AI is part of your child's future and we treat it that way: in proportion. Where a lesson calls for it, students learn to use it well, get more from it and stay safe with it, without handing over their own thinking. It does not run the class. Classes are paper and pencil, with a teacher at the front.
One line per grade
Parents have usually never seen a financial literacy class for children, so here is what each grade learns this year, in one line. The full year, month by month, is on each program page.
- Grade 3
- A first simple agreement between friends, and designing a product or service of their own.
- Little Genius
- Grade 4
- Running a small class business with a budget, and keeping the promises in an agreement.
- Little Genius
- Grade 5
- What a tax is and what it pays for, renting versus owning, debit versus credit, rules versus laws.
- Big Genius
- Grade 6
- Simple interest, how a credit card really works, what the CRA is, what a lease says.
- Big Genius
- Grade 7
- Compound interest, stocks and bonds, how a mortgage works, civil versus criminal law.
- Big Genius
- Grade 8
- Credit scores, what a real estate agent does and how commission works, what a contract means, employee rights.
- Big Genius
- Grade 9
- Reading a paystub (CPP, EI, deductions), credit and loan repayment, property rights.
- Senior Scholars
- Grade 10
- Leases and employment contracts, capital gains, mortgage basics, lawyers versus paralegals.
- Senior Scholars
- Grade 11
- Investing strategy, risk and return, tax planning, traffic tickets and driving law.
- Senior Scholars
- Grade 12
- A full financial plan, refinancing, retirement accounts, suing and being sued.
- Senior Scholars
750 lessons across Grades 5 to 12, written as lesson plans with a focus and an activity for every class. Lessons for Grades 1 to 4 are built to the same calendar.
Seven strands, every year
The same seven subjects come back every year, each time at the level the grade can use. By Grade 12 a student has read a lease, a paystub and a mortgage, and has run a business.
- 1Financial literacy and money concepts
- 2Mortgages, loans and credit
- 3Jobs and workforce preparation
- 4Taxes and personal finance
- 5Legal awareness
- 6Real estate
- 7Entrepreneurship and business skills
Why paper and pencil
Children already spend most of their day on screens. For the one hour they are with us, we want their full attention on the page, the teacher and each other.
Writing by hand also helps ideas stick: a 2024 Norwegian study found that handwriting produces far more elaborate brain connectivity than typing, in the networks tied to memory and learning. Slides are on the wall; nothing is in their hands but a pencil. A device is used only where a learning need requires it.
Van der Weel, F. R., and Van der Meer, A. L. H. (2024). "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom." Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1219945. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219945
They should not learn how a mortgage works after ten years of renting.
They should not learn what a paystub says by wondering where a third of it went.
Oakville opens in January 2027.
Ten seats per class. Launch pricing and the waived initiation fee are for Founding Families. Questions parents ask are answered on the questions page.