Business in the Community Cymru Volunteering Impact Award 2019 Winner: Principality Building Society
Principality Building Society claimed the title at the Wales Responsible Business Awards 2019.
During 2018’s Talk Money Week, Principality’s annual event that prompts people to get talking about financial matters, the company focused its efforts on helping primary school pupils across Wales. The aim was to get children talking about money, learning new skills and ensuring support for the key stage one curriculum in literacy and numeracy.
To achieve the best engagement possible, Principality commissioned a new book, Goose’s Cake Bake, from Aberystwyth University graduate Laura Wall, which was compiled specifically to engage the target age group of four- to six-year-olds in money matters. Available in Welsh and English, it provided a different, exciting and memorable way to learn about money, emphasising the importance of engaging with this age group and encouraging family-based learning.
More than 1,700 pupils took part in reading sessions, taking their own copy of the of the book home to read with family. Forty-one numeracy lessons complemented the book reading, helping pupils learn about wider skills like teamwork and enterprise and an additional 900 books were distributed to community groups across Wales.
The business benefited too:
- The book-reading and numeracy activities strongly align to Principality’s corporate social responsibility theme of financial education, and significantly contributed to its values of ‘delivering with passion’ and ‘doing the right thing’.
- More than 50 Principality staff volunteers spent over 200 hours going through the book with pupils, reporting personal benefits from their volunteering activity, including pride in the business and increased ambition to support education in the future.
“Principality and other businesses across Wales have a role to play in supporting our hard-working schools in helping to prepare children for life ahead.
We’re so proud of the book we’ve commissioned with Laura and hope it will go some way to ensure financial education is a reality for children in schools in Wales.”
Julie-Ann Haines
Customer Director, Principality
