Metro Bank colleagues from the Harrow store have delivered Money Zone - a financial education workshop - to year 3 and year 4 schoolchildren at the Quainton Hall School and Nursery. The aim of the complimentary workshop is to instil financial knowledge in the students from a young age.
Money Zone is a series of financial education lessons that Metro Bank offers to school children - either virtually or in store. Money Zone comprises of four sessions - budgeting, saving, banking and the last session which takes place in store giving the children a behind the scenes look at the Bank including a visit to the vault and the chance to try our Magic Money Machine. Metro Bank has delivered its Money Zone programme to over 250,000 school children.
Metro Bank’s Harrow Customer Service Representatives, Merina Rai, Zareefa Imteaz, Natalie Dawe, Anushiya Naganathan and Moh Ali delivered the sessions.
At Quainton Hall School and Nursery, Harrow Metro Bank colleagues took 70 kids through the key modules of the Money Zone programme, after which the children were brought into the store for an hour tour to discuss what they had learned during the sessions, visit the vault and experience the Magic Money Machine. The Magic Money Machine is a free coin counting machine available in all Metro Bank stores for customers’ use.
To teach the children about how saving money earns interest, Metro Bank colleagues use grapes – giving each child who does not immediately eat their grapes more and more grapes as time progresses. The children loved this session and immediately grasped the concept and the value of holding onto to their grapes to earn more.
Another activity consisted of creating a savings plan. The children had to decide what they wanted to save money for, how much money they needed to save, how much money they will need to save each week, how/where they will receive this money from and sign along with their parents to commit to this plan. This got the children to be very creative, in addition to creating their signatures for the very first time, as well as learning how important it is to budget and save to achieve a goal.
Metro Bank has a chant which the children loved learning and then singing to the Bank’s mascot, Metro Man, who dropped into the session to say hello.
“It is always refreshing to see the levels of interaction we have with the students,” explains Harrow Store Manager Chet Grewal. “Learning how to manage your money, budget and save are fundamental life skills that everyone needs to learn – and the younger the better.”
Customer Service Representative Merina Rai added: “We are proud of our Money Zone programme and the difference it makes in giving these students a good grounding in their financial education. It is important to teach our children how to budget and learn to save for future needs.”
Any schools interested in Money Zone can contact their local Metro Bank store for more information. Metro Bank’s Harrow store can be found at Unit 1-2 St Ann’s Shopping Centre, Harrow, HA1 1AS. The store is currently open Monday – Saturday: 8.30am - 6pm; Sunday: 11am - 5pm.