• Over half (59 per cent) of British parents found maths difficult when they were younger – leading to struggles with financial literacy later in life, research finds.
• As a result, more than three quarters (79 per cent) are using everyday activities to help improve the number skills of their children.
• Seven in ten parents revealed they regard sport as useful for helping children to engage and learn about maths, spelling, reading and geography.
• UEFA Champions League partner Santander and ambassador Rio Ferdinand have teamed up with Twinkl – one of the world’s largest online educational platforms – to launch The Numbers Game Champions Challenge Cards.
• The learning resources will target 5-14 year olds with UEFA Champions League-themed maths materials in line with school curriculums: www.twinkl.co.uk/thenumbersgame
• Weekly videos will be released, fronted by Rio Ferdinand and featuring animated caricatures of Europe’s finest footballers, setting maths-based challenges
• Rights-free images and launch film: http://bit.ly/TheNumbersGameBySantander
Britain’s parents are using football statistics, road signs and calculating the cost of weekly shopping to ensure their children have increased confidence in maths, research by Santander has found.
A study of 1000 parents and 1000 children aged 6-14 found everyday experiences like counting money and coloured cars in traffic as well as discussing sport were among the most popular ways to engage children with numbers.
More than three quarters of parents (78 per cent) said these everyday scenarios are useful for motivating children to learn about maths, spelling and reading and geography, while 69 per cent said sport in particular helps their children better understand maths.
Just over four in 10 (42 per cent) of the children surveyed said they struggled with maths - with 80 per cent acknowledging the importance of the subject in later life. Three quarters (78 per cent) of children surveyed said they enjoyed numbers in relation to sport. The research also revealed children are twice as likely to be excited or inspired by the UEFA Champions League’s biggest stars over leading business and maths figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Isaac Newton.
In response, UEFA Champions League partner Santander has joined forces with BT Sport pundit Rio Ferdinand and Twinkl to release The Numbers Game Champions Challenge Cards. The football-themed maths videos and maths learning materials will target children aged between 5 to 14 years old and will feature 44 of Europe’s finest footballers appearing as caricatures and animations. They will appear in 11 promotional films hosted by Rio Ferdinand and be launched weekly from 21st September. The accompanying resources will be available to download for free from Twinkl’s online platform by teachers, parents and carers to use with children and young people.
Santander has teamed up with the online educational publisher Twinkl for this activity to ensure the content reflects the curriculums taught in Britain’s classrooms. Twinkl houses over 660,000 educational materials for parents, teachers and carers to support the learning of children and young people.
The Numbers Game platform was first developed by Santander in 2019, in partnership with the bank’s official charity partner, National Numeracy, an independent charity committed to transforming number confidence and competence in adults and children. As a nationwide, educational, football-themed roadshow, The Numbers Game aimed to help people to enjoy and feel more comfortable working with numbers. Since then, the roadshow has visited 12 UK cities, engaging over 30,000 people, with 85% of participants surveyed saying they now have a better understanding of the importance of numbers in everyday life and 86% saying they now believe that being confident with numbers helps them manage their money better.
Nathan Bostock, CEO of Santander UK, said: “It’s great to see parents are using everyday activities as a way to boost school aged children’s confidence with numbers, particularly when it comes to everyday finances. We are determined to tackle financial exclusion so, together with Twinkl and Rio Ferdinand, we’re delighted to further evolve our football-themed Numbers Game programme. By bringing the excitement of the UEFA Champions League into learning, it ensures children can develop their numeracy skills in a way which is both educational and entertaining.”
Jonathan Seaton, Co-Founder and CEO of Twinkl, said: “Combining learning with everyday tasks and things that really excite children and young people is a great way to help them practise their skills and feel inspired. A lot of young people will be following the UEFA Champions League so this is a perfect opportunity for them to practise their maths and learn with their favourite footballers, whilst also enjoying the sport. We are always looking for new opportunities to enhance learning experiences for young people so we are excited to be working with Santander and the UEFA Champions League on this unique project.”
Rio Ferdinand, Santander ambassador said: “As a dad of three school-aged children, with a son on the way, I’m very passionate about making sure that kids have the best education possible. The home-schooling experience during lockdown really opened my eyes to how challenging it can be to get children engaged with their schoolwork, especially maths. The beautiful game of football is made up entirely of numbers and has the transformative power to motivate children as much inside the classroom as it can outdoors. I’m proud to be representing this campaign and excited about its implementation in schools and homes all over the UK.”
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Notes to Editors
The survey of 1,000 adults and 1,000 children aged between 6 – 14 was undertaken between 02/09/2020 and 04/09/2020 by polling company OnePoll - www.onepoll.com.
Challenge cards are a popular and trusted resource that use scenario-based learning to aid subject comprehension. They help children and young adults to apply what they have learnt in their lessons and can be easily distributed as homework due to their ease of application in the home setting. Twinkl has produced over 2,453 challenge cards on a range of subjects, which have been downloaded three million times and used across many of the 24,000 schools in the UK.
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. At 30 June 2020, the bank had around 23,000 employees and serves around 14 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Its purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising over €120 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of the first half of 2020, Banco Santander had more than a trillion euros in total funds, 146 million customers, of which 21.5 million are loyal and 40 million are digital, 11,800 branches and 194,000 employees.
About Twinkl
Twinkl was founded in 2010 in Sheffield by husband and wife Jonathan and Susie Seaton, with a mission ‘to help those who teach’. The company provides high quality, online learning materials and services, which are all teacher-created and checked. Twinkl offers over 660,000 resources, with new content added daily. This ranges from schemes of work and assessments to augmented reality games and much more. Twinkl is used and trusted by schools and educators in over 200 countries and regions, including primary and secondary school teachers, nursery workers and parents. The company now has over 600 team members based across the world and at its offices in Sheffield and Australia. More information can be found at twinkl.co.uk.
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