Financial education is a key pillar of Santander’s wider sustainability strategy and at the core of its responsible banking agenda. In the UK, Santander identified the lack of financial literacy in schools and how this skills gap affects people’s ability to manage their finances later in life, leading to problems such as debt and poor mental health. Santander declared its ambition with a publicly stated objective to become a leader in financial education; to provide over two million children and young people with a meaningful financial education by 2025.

To support this objective, a creative idea was needed to tackle the issue at source and supply educators with the tools they would need to emotionally engage children and young people in the classroom and at home. This required free, fun and friendly learning materials to help breakdown the barriers to learning and improve teachers’ and childrens’ confidence in financial education.

The Numbers Game is a wide collection of free, curriculum-friendly learning materials created by real teachers which provide essential financial education to help build money confidence in both primary and secondary schools.

Teaching children about numbers and money can be challenging due to the often dry and abstract nature of the concepts, making it harder to maintain focus and interest during lessons. Santander’s research found that teachers who used popular culture resources on average rated their confidence levels in teaching 60% higher.

To solve this challenge, we utilised real teachers to develop the resources and harnessed our ambassadors Ant & Dec to not only promote them, but to become part of them. This ensured the resources offered a truly engaging, entertaining and inspiring experience for both teachers and students based on familiarity and trust. This approach was key to encouraging teachers to proactively use the resources with their students.

Extensive research and contributions came from a range of experts (Money & Pensions Service, World Bank, Barnardo’s, National Numeracy, UK Finance, Twinkl), supported by our own independent research, to validate the approach:

1. A true financial education combines both core numeracy skills with financial understanding and doesn’t treat them in isolation - something other programmes weren’t doing.

2. Measure real impact (genuine usage), not passive metrics like clicks/page-views. This validated our partnership with Twinkl for unique distribution access into schools.

Target Audiences/Approach:

Children & Young People

- Excite them through engaging and interactive content featuring the UK’s favourite entertainers.

Teachers, Educators & Parents

- Make the resources free, credible, easy-to-use and engaging for students to encourage their teaching.

Schools

- Encourage support through our Recognition Scheme that adds value in the eyes of parents (62% of UK adults would be more likely to choose a school that teaches financial education)

The launch of The Numbers Game with Ant & Dec was promoted across a diverse media mix. Paid channels included TV, video-on-demand, cinema, out of home, social media, YouTube and search. We experienced a 1,228% increase in The Numbers Game website traffic in the first week of airing the TV advert, contributing to download and beneficiary growth.

A big PR push saw the campaign feature in 33 pieces of earned media coverage within the UK, Europe and globally, resulting in a combined reach of 3.8 million. The campaign also hit 4 million inboxes of opted-in Santander customers.

The distribution of The Numbers Game among educators and within schools is made possible through our strategic partnership with Twinkl, the world’s largest online educational publisher. Twinkl’s market leading position provides unrivalled access to a global education network of over 15.5 million schools, teachers and parents, an integral part to scaling this initiative.

Since January 2022, The Numbers Game resources have been used by over 2.5 million children, 100,000 educators and 8,300 schools across the UK.

82% of teachers surveyed said that the resources made it easier to teach financial education and 72% said children are now more money confident.

The Numbers Game has also created awareness and shifted attitudes towards the importance of financial education in schools, who are now so eager to invest in their students’ financial futures, that 200+ have joined our free supplementary Financial Education Recognition Scheme in one year.

The impact of the programme led to an invite to Westminster to talk about the importance of integrating financial education within the primary school curriculum, and has meant we’ve exceeded our global targets ahead of time. As a result, we’ve revised our global education targets, with the mission to promote inclusive, equitable and quality learning opportunities for millions more.