- Five pupils from Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College joined bank’s operations team this summer to give them a career boost
- Student teams worked on variety of projects, including raising more than £500 for charity
This summer has seen Santander once again open its Bradford office to Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College students as part of its summer work experience programme.
The five students joined the bank for a month long paid work placement designed to help improve their employment prospects. The placements are part of the bank’s national support for educational charity Career Ready, which prepares students for the world of work via a programme of mentoring, workplace visits, internships and masterclasses.
The students, Sophie Lowton, Lauren Cropper, Kian Phillipson, Adam Wilkinson and Chloe Charlton, are all in the Buttershaw sixth form and were given a variety of tasks to complete as part of their internships. One project involved working in teams to raise funds for the charities Santander supports, with the students exceeding their targets by raising more than £500.
The students also had to make presentations to Santander’s head of retail operations, a task which could be daunting for many people, even with years of work experience. However, they all rose to the challenge and delivered very high quality presentations about what they had learnt in their time at the bank.
Pam Speed, Director of Santander Operations, said: “At Santander our focus is on helping people and businesses prosper. We want young people to fulfil their potential and our partnership with Career Ready is just one of the many ways in which we try to help them achieve their goals. The students we have met this summer have bags of talent and boundless enthusiasm. We hope that by giving them high quality internship placements we’ve been able to help develop their employability skills and give them a valuable insight into the workplace. We have been hugely impressed by both their attitude and their skills – they are a huge credit to their families and their school.”
Lauren Cropper, a Buttershaw Business and Enterprise College student, said the placement has been challenging and rewarding. She said: “You hear stories about interns at some companies spending four weeks making tea or doing photocopying, but we’ve been given real projects to work on and have been judged on our achievements. The Santander mentors have spent valuable time with us and have given us a real insight into the workplace. We’ve missed a few sunny days in the park but it’s definitely been worth it – the skills we’ve developed are going to last us a lot longer than a suntan would.”
- Ends -
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:
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 30 June 2018, the bank has c24,200 employees. It serves around 15 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking; and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. 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 are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
About Us
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 market share in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization. At the end of June 2018, Banco Santander had EUR 981 billion in customer funds (deposits and mutual funds), 140 million customers, 13,500 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made attributable profit of EUR 3,752 million in the first half of 2018, an increase of 4% compared to the same period last year.
Media Enquiries
Leonora Burtenshaw T: 0207 756 4543 M: 077 0100 4107
E: leonora.burtenshaw@santander.co.uk
Follow @santanderuknews on Twitter
The Santander press office operates from 8.00am to 6.00pm. Outside of these hours please call 0800 5877708.