Let’s support even more pupils to enjoy the benefits of schools’ football
5th – 11th February 2024
Schools’ Football Week (SFW), in partnership with Pro:Direct Sport, is an ongoing initiative created by the English Schools’ FA (ESFA) and designed as an opportunity for schools, teams and clubs from across the country to embrace schools’ football and the wellbeing benefits it provides to pupils and players. It celebrates the importance of schools’ football, competitive or otherwise, to pupils across England and provides teachers and coaches with tools and a motivation to further discuss the benefits of schools’ football within their educational environment, from the pitch to the classroom.
This year, the ESFA is delighted to be continuing to promote SFW in partnership with Pro:Direct Sport – The World’s largest online specialist sports store, who will support the Schools’ Football Week campaign for the second consecutive season and help raise more awareness of this initiative than ever before.
In 2023, Schools’ Football Week saw almost a quarter of a million children across more than 1,400 schools in England taking part in football related activity. 45% of participants were girls and the campaign was backed by both the DfE and DCMS.
In 2024, we aim to engage even more schools and pupils to embrace Schools’ Football Week and use the campaign to demonstrate what a fantastic learning tool football can be to create friendships, learn new skills and abilities and engage pupils of all ages.
The story so far…
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| Number of pupils | 22,000 | 104,594 | 142,881 | 235,235 |
| Number of schools | 340 | 491 | 815 | 1,400 |
| Number of teams | 2,704 | 8,427 | 10,022 | 15,228 |
| Number of girls | – | – | 57,000 | 108,000 |
Share your experiences
Schools’ Football Week is all about you, your players, your pupils and your collective experiences. We will use this week to highlight the widespread joy that schools’ football brings to children of all ages, whether they play in a school team, representative team, enjoy freestyling or tricks, playing for fun with their friends or learning through and about football. Whatever form Schools’ Football Week takes for you and your players – we want to hear all about it!
We have set up a link to register your school as taking part in Schools’ Football Week. In February 2023, we registered over 235,000 pupils taking part in activity, plus over 108,000 girls and over 1,400 schools – we hope to be able to push this even further in 2024. However big or small your participation will be, it all counts, it’s all valuable and it all matters. You are helping us to create something exciting and wonderful!
Don’t stop at registration…
- You can use social media to share plans and ideas, to tell people in your local area about what you’re doing, to highlight accomplishments and share your stories
- You can contact your local media or MP to recognise the support you are giving to Schools’ Football Week
- Don’t forget to tune into our Live Schools’ Football Draws during SFW to see which teams will be battling against each other in the next rounds of the PlayStation Schools’ Cup and Arnold Clark Schools’ Cup competitions
- You can shout from the rooftops about how you are participating in Schools’ Football Week 2024
Remember to Share posts on social media tagging @schoolsfootball and @ProD_Soccer on Twitter and @schoolsfootball and @prodirectsoccer on Instagram and using the hashtag #schoolsfootballweek so we can keep up with all the action.
Remember to have fun
There are many significant social and physical benefits to schools’ football – it’s a fantastic way for children to make friends, learn new skills and understand how football can be beneficial to their education. Football doesn’t have to be competitive, but it should always be fun and children should always feel safe and happy whilst they play, train or learn. For information on safeguarding children in football, you can head over to our Safeguarding for Players section on the ESFA website.
To find out more about the English Schools’ Football Association, click the link below –