Wealth management giant St James’s Place (SJP) is joining forces with charity Young Enterprise to support the accreditation of schools looking to become Centres of Excellence (CoE) for financial education.
SJP will be sponsoring 21 education providers, with seven each year over the next three years, mainly in deprived areas across the UK. They will be helped on their journey to progress to becoming accredited CoEs for financial education through a consultant from Young Enterprise to work one-to-one with the school.
The first education providers to be confirmed are Tonge Moor Primary Academy in Bolton, Greater Manchester; Whitefield Primary School in Liverpool; and Moor House School & College in Oxted, a special education school in Surrey.
In addition, SJP will be forming four further partnerships in its first year with schools in Swindon, London, Solihull, and Leeds, with schools to be confirmed in 2023.
Expand financial literacy
The wealth manager’s partnership with Young Enterprise aims to support education providers – including primary and secondary schools – on their accreditation journey, providing academic staff with the tools and resources needed to teach financial literacy and help build the financial confidence of students across the UK.
SJP employees and advisers will play a key role in this partnership, supporting Young Enterprise consultants with the delivery of financial education workshops, work experience opportunities, teacher training and mentoring.
Vicki Foster, division director of responsible business at SJP, said: “At St James’s Place we are committed to being a leading responsible business. This means creating a positive impact through committing to help improve financial education for young people.
“By creating lessons plans and facilitating financial education training sessions for teachers, we are taking practical steps that are fundamental to developing and expanding financial literacy across the UK.
“With the backing of Young Enterprise supporting the Centre of Excellence programme, we are helping to build an accessible financial education programme within schools. The community-based programme is supported by local SJP partners and employees from our wider business, and we hope that as the programme develops, each of the Centres of Excellence will share their learnings with others and improve access to financial education across the board.”
This comes a day after International Adviser published a story on whether Rishi Sunak’s plan to make maths compulsory until 18 will improve the UK’s financial education.
