Camden students see maths in action at Barclays

Barclays volunteers opened their offices to a group of 13 students from Camden’s LaSWAP Sixth Form Centre earlier this month. Inspire! organised the visit to help the Mathematical Studies students gain a better understanding of how their subject relates to the world of work.

All of Inspire!’s work relies on the support of volunteers, who facilitate the delivery of our programmes and add real-world context to sessions through their input. Barclays volunteers have been a fixture of many of Inspire!’s programmes over the years, and were participating in this event as part of the company’s annual ‘Make a Difference’ citizenship drive.

The 11 members of Barclays staff who supported the LaSwap students’ visit did a wonderful job of engaging with the sixth formers. One volunteer commented that the ‘students were very responsive. It was a pleasure to have this session with them’.

The visit began with a careers carousel activity, where students spoke with a range of staff from different fields to get an understanding of their roles and career paths. This was followed by a Barclays LifeSkillsactivity, in which the students analysed different financial products to calculate which offered a particular customer the best value – giving students a chance to flex their maths skills while improving their financial literacy.

The students ended their busy morning with a Q&A session and a tour of part of Barclays’ offices. Feedback from the young people who attended was universally positive. All felt that they had really learnt something thanks to the morning’s activities. One told us that ‘the best part was getting to know the volunteers. It gave me an insight into what type of jobs they do; also I learnt new things about the banking system’.

Inspire!’s Senior Programme Manager, Lauren Thomas, said: ‘We are so grateful to our partners at the National Youth Agency for helping us to coordinate this activity. Visits like this are a fantastic way for young people to see how their subjects can translate into future careers, and the LifeSkills activity was a wonderful additional boost to the students’ financial literacy. We can’t thank Barclays enough for all their support and are looking forward to working with more of their generous and welcoming staff in the future.’

For more information about how you or your business can get involved and support our work with young people from Camden and Hackney, please call 020 7275 6060 or email info@inspire-ebp.org.uk.