Saving at St Stephen's with Halcrow

‘Closing the Gap’ is an innovative programme of Scottish Business in the Community, which offers support for schools in Glasgow. This support can be through mentoring, site visits, training or work experience.

As part of our involvement in this initiative, Halcrow has established links with St. Stephen’s Primary School, situated near Glasgow’s City Park office. On the 5 February, Lesley Muir of Halcrow, Mairi-Claire Traynor of McGrigors and Leanne Craig of The Royal Bank of Scotland were invited to visit St. Stephen’s Primary School for the official opening of St. Stephen’s school bank.

The pupils of Primary six in conjunction with The Royal Bank of Scotland have been participating in a financial awareness activity, as well as working towards providing a banking service to the school. This resulted in the pupils being interviewed, selected and trained for certain positions from bank tellers to members of the marketing or event management teams. The bank will be operated by pupils every Tuesday morning in the school, giving children in primary four and upwards the opportunity to deposit their money and watch their savings grow.

Lesley commented: “the enthusiasm shown by the children proves that this is a very worthwhile project and the knowledge and skills acquired can only stand them in great stead for their future.” Claire Gunn of Saint Roch’s Learning Community said: “As part of our financial education strategy, St Roch’s Learning Community is committed to providing various opportunities for pupils to develop a better understanding of their personal finances, encourage them to become financially capable and make the right choices for their futures. St Stephen’s school bank has

provided an excellent opportunity through this enterprise project, for the pupils to learn about financial education in a ‘real-life’ setting. It is a great example of how financial education can be integrated into the curriculum.”