● As schools in the UK remain closed, research shows just 15 minutes of exercise a day may improve children’s attention, memory and wellbeing.i
● Santander and brand ambassadors, The F2 Freestylers, have teamed up with Twinkl - one of the world’s largest online educational platforms – to launch The Numbers Game.
● The Numbers Game campaign encourages children to be physically active as they practise maths skills and provides a fun and easy way for parents and carers to engage children aged 5 to 11-years old with maths at home - twinkl.co.uk/the-numbers-game.
● Daily videos will be released and fronted by YouTube sensation The F2 Freestylers that will fuse football skills with maths – youtu.be/gJjb5D0upmA.
● The F2 Freestylers are the world’s leading football social media influencers with 2.3 billion views on YouTube. The freestyle duo create entertaining football videos in which they showcase their impressive skills and take on different football-themed challenges. Imagery of them in action - bit.ly/the-numbers-game
Beginning Monday 18th May 2020, Santander UK has joined forces with The F2 Freestylers and Twinkl to release daily football-themed maths videos and free maths learning materials online for children aged between 5 to 11 years. The Numbers Game campaign aims to harness the transformative power of football to support children’s learning and development of maths skills. This is supported by Twinkl’s fun, active and meaningful maths worksheets and challenges, which are in line with UK curriculums.
The campaign – initially running from 18th – 22nd May and then continuing through 1st – 5th June – is underpinned by evidence published in BMC Medicineii that suggests using breaks to do ‘self-paced’ physical activity may improve children’s wellbeing and cognitive performance when compared with children who were not active during breaks.
Santander has teamed up with Twinkl on this activity to ensure the content reflects the curriculums taught in Britain’s classrooms. Twinkl houses over 640,000 educational materials for parents, teachers and children and has recently won a Queen’s Award for Innovation for its planning and activity resources. Santander ambassadors The F2 Freestylers are a football freestyle duo, consisting of Jeremy Lynch and Billy Wingrove, who have amassed over 12 million subscribers. Santander aims to use the universal language of football to provide some light relief to home life during temporary school closures, while enhancing children’s key maths skills.
Free to use and accessible to everyone, each week of challenges will focus on a different theme - the first two weeks of which are times tables and time. A special challenge will be set at the end of each week where participants will be awarded certificates.
The Numbers Game platform was first developed by Santander in 2019, in partnership with National Numeracy, the bank’s official charity partner, as a nationwide, educational, football-themed roadshow aimed at helping 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. This latest iteration is a natural evolution of the highly successful campaign.
To support The Numbers Game campaign, The F2 Freestylers will be hosting two live maths-themed football skills shows. These will go live on 18th May and 1st June at 12 noon and The F2 Freestylers will also be supporting the campaign with Instagram, Twitter and TikTok posts.
Susan Allen, CEO Retail and Business Banking at Santander UK, said: “The Numbers Game, originally developed in conjunction with our charity partner National Numeracy as a roadshow, has been a real success since it launched last year, already helping tens of thousands of people build their confidence in maths through football.
“We know how challenging the current environment is, particularly for parents, and are delighted to have been able to develop the initiative further with Twinkl to support children while at home, in both a fun and engaging way.”
Jonathan Seaton, Co-Founder and CEO of Twinkl, said: “This is a really exciting project that we hope will provide teachers, parents and carers with a new activity for home learning and excite and engage children.
“The F2 Freestylers are incredibly talented and much admired and this combined with the expertise of Santander and the team at Twinkl makes it an ideal way to teach and learn maths skills whilst being active. We are always looking for new ways to help those who teach and we are delighted to be working with Santander and The F2 Freestylers on this project.”
Jeremy Lynch of The F2 Freestylers, said: “We’re excited to be a part of this campaign with Santander and Twinkl. Being active is so important for our health and using football to keep moving whilst building maths skills is a great way to combine learning with the beautiful game. We hope children will be inspired to pick up a ball, stay fit and keep their number skills on top form."
Billy Wingrove of The F2 Freestylers, said: “The Numbers Game campaign is a great initiative. I know from my own children that combining learning and sport is really fun and meaningful for them, we’re very proud to be part of this timely campaign alongside Santander and Twinkl.”
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The information contained in our press releases is intended solely for journalists and should not be used by consumers to make financial decisions.
Notes to Editors
Link to The Numbers Game landing page: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/the-numbers-game
Link to images: https://bit.ly/the-numbers-game
Link to videos: https://youtu.be/gJjb5D0upmA
The F2 Freestylers:
youtube.com/f2freestylers
instagram.com/thef2
TikTok @f2
i- BMC Medicine, March 2020: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01539-4
ii - BMC Medicine, March 2020: https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01539-4
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 December 2019, the bank had around 23,500 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 2019, Banco Santander had EUR 1.05 trillion in total funds, 145 million customers, of which 21.6 million are loyal and 37 million are digital (52% of active customers), 12,000 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made underlying profit of EUR 8,252 million in 2019, an increase of 2% compared to the previous year.
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 640,000 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.
Media Enquiries
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