26 November 2021

Principality and Xplore! team up to teach over 1,000 school children money skills

Principality Building Society has partnered with science discovery centre and educational charity Xplore! to launch a financial education programme spanning North Wales, Chester and Shrewsbury.

From now until Spring 2022, both the Society and Xplore! will join forces to teach money masterclass workshops to over 1,000 primary school children. The project, titled ‘Principality savings school’, will use interactive and engaging classroom activities such as board games to teach valuable skills including identifying money, costing and learning how to save.

The partnership builds on the principles and practices within the Donaldson curriculum in Wales as well as responding to research commissioned by the Money and Pensions Service which identified that children start to form adult money habits between the ages of three and seven. 

David Critcher, Regional Manager at Principality Building Society said:
‘’We’re really proud to be working with Xplore! to deliver a financial education programme to schools across North Wales, Chester and Shrewsbury. It’s so important to us as a building society that we are able to support children and young people to be financially confident, which is why we are delighted to be joining forces again with Xplore!, who share our values of equipping young people with the tools they need to prosper in the future.’’

As Wales’ largest building society, Principality is committed to supporting schools with financial education and careers based learnings and since 2017 has reached 40,000 young people with money and careers based activities. The programme follows a successful roll out back in 2019 with Xplore!, which saw 450 children benefit from the Principality savings school workshops.

Katie Williams, Business Development and Stakeholder Engagement Officer, Xplore! said:
 “We're really excited that Principality is continuing its partnership with Xplore! for another year. It’s wonderful to be back in schools delivering our interactive workshops and the saving school session is no exception.  After so much time away from the classroom and indeed from shops where children would spend pocket money it’s more important than ever that children don’t miss out on money management skills.”

Black Lane CP School in Wrexham was one of the schools visited recently as part of the savings school programme. Lucy Saiet-Jones, Teacher at Black Lane CP School said: ‘’The workshop was an excellent introduction to saving money for Foundation Phase children. The carousel of hands on activities were engaging, fun and educational - from coin recognition to role play working and using a building society. The children loved it!’’

Published: 26/11/2021