Trust aims to promote literacy by promoting football
IT IS often referred to as the beautiful game, and now the National Literacy Trust hopes football can work wonders with disaffected pupils.
The charity has launched a new programme, called Game Changers, to boost the reading skills and life chances of excluded young people.
Combining football-themed reading lessons, practical activities and the use of sporting role models, the aim is to equip 900 students, excluded from mainstream school, with vital reading skills.
Research shows that young people who miss out on traditional schooling have some of the poorest outcomes in education, health and life. Only one per cent achieve five good GCSEs and they are also 10 times more likely to experience mental health problems than their peers.
Game Changers aims to turn this around by using football as a springboard into reading, which research shows can boost young people’s educational attainment and mental wellbeing.
Tim Judge, senior programme manager for sport and literacy at the National Literacy Trust, said: “Excluded students deserve to have the same opportunities as their peers in school.
“Using the power of football, Game Changers will help to transform the life chances of hundreds of young people who face some of the greatest barriers to success at school and in life.”
The programme, which will target 11 to 14-year-olds, is funded by BT Supporters Club through Comic Relief. A pilot of the programme, run in partnership with Nottingham Forest Community Trust and funded by The PFA, found that using role models from local football clubs to help teachers deliver the programme heightened young people’s motivation to read.
As a result, 15 football clubs from the English Football League have committed to supporting the delivery of Game Changers, including Bradford City.
From January, the trust will be delivering the free programme in 80 pupil referral units and alternative provision settings across England and Wales.