Britain
The Beautiful Game: School attendances and exam results in the British Isles have improved thanks to Premiership soccer. Most of England's Premiership teams offer children lessons in subjects such as science and geography.
The Times September 25, 2006
Football club classes are a winner with children
By Alexandra Frean
School attendances and exam results get a boost thanks to Premiership’s out-of-hours lessons
Pupils from eight North London schools enjoy classes at Arsenal (Ben Duffy)
ENGLAND’S leading football clubs are spearheading a revolution in the classroom, using the kudos, emotional involvement and pulling power of the beautiful game to boost exam performance and attendance.
Secondary schools in the North West have seen attendance levels among regular truants rise by 42 per cent after the pupils attended a motivational course at Blackburn Rovers, and schools in Middlesbrough have had a marked increase in the numbers of pupils staying on after GCSE.
The successes are being repeated across England as children find the offer of a meeting with a Barclaycard Premiership player and the chance to study at a major league ground irresistible. Lessons in science, religious education, geography, modern languages, information technology, business studies and history, as well as football, are on offer in purpose-built classrooms at many of the 20 clubs in the Premiership.
Middlesbrough FC Enterprise Academy introduces 11 to 19-year-olds to the worlds of business and enterprise. Anthony Emmerson, who runs the academy, said that his team of eight teachers uses the business of football to spark and hold pupils’ interest.
“We don’t have a man in a suit talking about profit and loss. We have one of our teachers, in a Middlesbrough tracksuit, asking the students to think about how a club raises ticket sales, how it decides to buy a new player or what might be the best surface for players to train on.”
Students who do well get to meet the players and are awarded certificates — for many, the first they have had.
Karen Pritchard, the director of specialism at Blakeston School, Stockton-on-Tees, whose pupils have attended the academy, said: “We found that attendance levels increased, especially for the lower-ability pupils. And they are turning up to school as they know they’ve got people from the Enterprise Academy coming in.” At Blackburn Rovers, Duncan Kendall, a former science teacher who runs the club’s education programme with three other teachers, said that the GCSE results of pupils taking part had risen markedly.
“I know that getting children to submit coursework can be hard. So we invite pupils to the club for a day to do their coursework and since we have done it there has been a significant improvement in their marks.
“The coursework is relevant to the club; for example, we will measure the effect of exercise on the heart rate,” he said.
The football club, which has three classrooms at its stadium, offers a wide range of courses, including religious education classes. These have enabled children from a rural all-white Church of England primary school in Samlesbury, near Preston, to learn about Islam and visit local mosques — a programme described by their head teacher, Nick Cornall, as “the best multicultural learning experience the children could ever have”.
At Arsenal, the Double Club works with eight school clubs in North London, teaching literacy and numeracy full-time at each one. The scheme has been so successful that it has been extended to Portsmouth FC and Pentonville prison.
Football’s achievements off the pitch and in the classroom will be celebrated today by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, at a reception at the Labour Party conference.
Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the FA Premier League, said that clubs had become more aware of their duty to invest in their communities. “Clubs are all about using their success, on and off the pitch, to engage with their communities and to help effect change in people’s lives,” he said.
thetimesonline.co.uk
The Beautiful Game: School attendances and exam results in the British Isles have improved thanks to Premiership soccer. Most of England's Premiership teams offer children lessons in subjects such as science and geography.
The Times September 25, 2006
Football club classes are a winner with children
By Alexandra Frean
School attendances and exam results get a boost thanks to Premiership’s out-of-hours lessons
Pupils from eight North London schools enjoy classes at Arsenal (Ben Duffy)
ENGLAND’S leading football clubs are spearheading a revolution in the classroom, using the kudos, emotional involvement and pulling power of the beautiful game to boost exam performance and attendance.
Secondary schools in the North West have seen attendance levels among regular truants rise by 42 per cent after the pupils attended a motivational course at Blackburn Rovers, and schools in Middlesbrough have had a marked increase in the numbers of pupils staying on after GCSE.
The successes are being repeated across England as children find the offer of a meeting with a Barclaycard Premiership player and the chance to study at a major league ground irresistible. Lessons in science, religious education, geography, modern languages, information technology, business studies and history, as well as football, are on offer in purpose-built classrooms at many of the 20 clubs in the Premiership.
Middlesbrough FC Enterprise Academy introduces 11 to 19-year-olds to the worlds of business and enterprise. Anthony Emmerson, who runs the academy, said that his team of eight teachers uses the business of football to spark and hold pupils’ interest.
“We don’t have a man in a suit talking about profit and loss. We have one of our teachers, in a Middlesbrough tracksuit, asking the students to think about how a club raises ticket sales, how it decides to buy a new player or what might be the best surface for players to train on.”
Students who do well get to meet the players and are awarded certificates — for many, the first they have had.
Karen Pritchard, the director of specialism at Blakeston School, Stockton-on-Tees, whose pupils have attended the academy, said: “We found that attendance levels increased, especially for the lower-ability pupils. And they are turning up to school as they know they’ve got people from the Enterprise Academy coming in.” At Blackburn Rovers, Duncan Kendall, a former science teacher who runs the club’s education programme with three other teachers, said that the GCSE results of pupils taking part had risen markedly.
“I know that getting children to submit coursework can be hard. So we invite pupils to the club for a day to do their coursework and since we have done it there has been a significant improvement in their marks.
“The coursework is relevant to the club; for example, we will measure the effect of exercise on the heart rate,” he said.
The football club, which has three classrooms at its stadium, offers a wide range of courses, including religious education classes. These have enabled children from a rural all-white Church of England primary school in Samlesbury, near Preston, to learn about Islam and visit local mosques — a programme described by their head teacher, Nick Cornall, as “the best multicultural learning experience the children could ever have”.
At Arsenal, the Double Club works with eight school clubs in North London, teaching literacy and numeracy full-time at each one. The scheme has been so successful that it has been extended to Portsmouth FC and Pentonville prison.
Football’s achievements off the pitch and in the classroom will be celebrated today by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, at a reception at the Labour Party conference.
Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the FA Premier League, said that clubs had become more aware of their duty to invest in their communities. “Clubs are all about using their success, on and off the pitch, to engage with their communities and to help effect change in people’s lives,” he said.
thetimesonline.co.uk