Enjopyed our first PSHE lesson on Money Matters, Santander staff came to visit year 5 to discuss ‘What banks do’.

The aims of their visit were to introduce the following:

• To show how banks can help us manage our money.
• To introduce what banks do and the services they offer.
• To show what might happen to your money as time passes.

As a general introduction, the children were asked to make a list of the type of jobs to be found in a bank. They were all very knowledgeable, mentioning the branch manager, the cashiers … right through to the HR manager and IT support.

Next, a discussion was had regarding ‘What do banks do?’ From this discussion, key words were mentioned which they then had to find in a word search and understand the meaning of: savings, balance, account, deposit, interest, withdrawal, cheque, statements. They were all very quick to complete this activity, always enjoying a good wordsearch.

Another fun activity was completed with what they had learnt so far. They had to choose whether certain statements about what banks do were true or false.

The three ways of paying for goods were outlined – cash, debit cards and credit cards. Cheques were also described as many children had never seen cheques before.

How to save was covered – at home or in the bank – and the understanding of INTEREST was explained.

Lastly, they talked about INFLATION and saw some amazing figures that compare prices from 1999 to 2022:
 

The children were fully engaged throughout the whole session, answering questions, asking questions, listening carefully and having fruitful discussions. They all came away having learnt a lot and we look forward to session two very soon.