Our Junior Newbury Building Society scheme continues to teach primary school children throughout our branch towns about saving money.
This year, we rounded off activities at Rush Common Primary School in Abingdon with Senior Branch Manager, Julie Harris, and Digital Marketing Assistant, Mollie Maclean.
What is Junior Newbury Building Society?
Junior Newbury Building Society (JNBS) is a groundbreaking financial education project, which we have been running since 2008 throughout Berkshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire. With help from their local branch team, the children are empowered to run their own branch in the school once a week – taking real savings deposits from customers (aka fellow pupils!) and updating the payees record of receipt, just like a real cashier.
JNBS is a hugely important part of my role as Senior Branch Manager of the Society’s Abingdon and Didcot branches. It’s a pleasure to watch the pupils grow in confidence as they learn about money and develop good savings habits. We had a great day training the new Cashiers and Marketing Officers at Rush Common School, and we look forward to hearing how they get on next year!
Setting Rush Common’s branch up for success
Mollie and Julie spent the day at Rush Common with Year 6 pupils, training the children to take deposits, count money, update cards and display Newbury’s excellent customer service ethos.
In a new aspect of the scheme this year, keen creative minds have also been recruited to become Marketing Officers for the branches. The marketeers are responsible for promoting the JNBS branch at their school – often with great results!
Whilst our new Cashiers got to grips with cash, coins and counting, those in the marketing workshop created some eye-catching posters to attract new customers, highlighting the chance for stickers and certificates for savers who visit the branch 10 times or more.
The creativity and enthusiasm the children have is fantastic to see and hearing their ideas to promote their JNBS branch really put a smile on my face. The marketing workshops, which are new to JNBS this year, have had such a positive impact and I’m really glad I get to be part of it.
Want JNBS at your children’s school?
You can find out more about how the scheme works, and if your school is on board, here. If you’d like to talk to us about running a JNBS branch at your children’s school, send us an email and we’ll be in touch.
