Design your own England shirt with the SFW Big Competition
The English Schools’ FA and Pro:Direct Sport are delighted to launch the first ever Schools’ Football Week Big Competition, where pupils from schools participating in Schools’ Football Week activity from the 5th – 11th February 2024, are invited to Design an England shirt, using the SFW template we have created.
During Schools’ Football Week, it’s as important to us to bring football to the pitch as well as the classroom and we hope that the SFW Big Competition will inspire your pupils to draw on their design skills, flex their creativity and use their imagination to create their perfect England shirt.
The Competition
We have created a SFW Big Competition worksheet with shirt template for you to download and print for your pupils. All they need to do is let their imaginations run wild, put pen (or pencil) to paper and create their dream England shirt.
The competition opens on Monday 5th February and closes on Friday 16th February. Once you have your designs, please scan them and email them to memberservices@prodirectsport.com for the shortlisting process.
Top Tip: You might want to hold your own competition within school to pick your top 3 entries to submit for the competition!
For the winners
A winning design will be selected from one primary school pupil and one secondary school pupil. The winning entries will not only be shared across the English Schools’ FA and Pro:Direct social channels, but the winning designs will be made into genuine football shirts and presented to the pupils that created them. Using Pro:Direct’s creative software, they will recreate the designs and make them into a SFW shirt for two lucky school pupils to be proud of. The winning pupils will also receive a £250 Pro:Direct voucher to spend via the Pro:Direct website.
Winners will be announced on or around the 28 February 2024.
Good luck to all those who take part – and don’t forget to post your pupils’ progress and tag #schoolsfootballweek as they begin their designs!
Coerver Coaching are offering free coaching opportunities for school teachers duirng schools’ football week 2023
With Schools’ Football Week 2023, in partnership with Pro:Direct Sport, just around the corner, we are delighted to announce that Pro:Direct alongside Coerver coaching will be offering exciting and informative online coaching sessions for teachers during Schools’ Football Week 2023.
Since 1984 Coerver Coaching has been at the centre if the evolution of skilful, modern football, and is now recognised as a leader in youth football education worldwide. The Coerver® methodology is currently delivered to players, coaches and clubs in excess of 50 countries across the globe at all levels of the game. The sessions will be delivered by Director of Coerver Coaching, Scott Wright who has worked with a plethora of Premier League clubs including Liverpool FC, Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City FC.
Save the date:
Scott is presenting two 45 minute sessions after school next week, one suitable for primary schools and one for secondary. These sessions are for anyone who is interested in creating or maintaining schools’ football activity and can be shared with school staff to help inspire new football activity within your school.
Primary – Wednesday 8th Feb (16:00-16:45)
Secondary – Thursday 9th Feb (16:00-16:45)
Scott will present a Live, interactive workshop aimed at delivering effective coaching sessions within primary and secondary school settings. It doesn’t stop at the session – following the talk, attendees will be able to access a 6 week lesson plan that they can use following Schools’ Football Week 2023 which will help facilitate football sessions during the week and beyond. You will also be able to access an exclusive 50% discount on the Coerver Virtual Intro course.
Registration details will be published here on the Schools’ Football Week website as well as sent out to teachers via email- so put the date in your diary, tell your colleagues and we hope to welcome you along to the sessions on the 8th and 9th of February.
The ESFA’s Schools’ Football Week campaign is once again highlighting the importance of girls’ football and will see over 108,000 girls benefitting from schools’ football activity this February
Schools’ Football Week (SFW), in partnership with Pro:Direct Sport, is an ongoing ESFA initiative 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.
This year, the ESFA is delighted to be working on SFW in partnership with Pro:Direct Sport – The World’s largest online specialist sports store, who will support the Schools’ Football Week campaign and help raise more awareness of this initiative than ever before.
The 2022 campaign saw the ESFA embrace the growing participation in girls’ football in schools – promoting the importance of equal access to schools’ football for both girls and boys. 2022 saw 56,000 girls taking part in schools’ football activity as part of the campaign. In this new season, following the incredible journey of the Lionesses and continuing the trend the ESFA have seen over the last two years, the Association plans to continue in their pursuit to celebrate girls’ and all schools’ football. The ESFA has seen the highest ever number of girls’ entries into National Cup Competitions in 22/23 and since opening registrations for SFW activity, the ESFA has also seen the highest ever participation numbers for SFW activity, including an increase of girls’ participation of over 50,000 on last year’s figures, meaning over 108,000 girls will benefit from the campaign this season and almost a quarter of a million school pupils across England will enjoy SFW activity.
Schools’ Football Week 2023 will see the ESFA reach huge new levels of participation –
Over 235,000 pupils registered to take part in SFW activity
Over 15,000 teams will benefit from the campaign
Over 1,400 schools have registered for events
Over 108,000 girls will benefit from schools’ football activity during SFW
In addition to continuing to champion girls’ football this season, Schools’ Football Week is also focussing on:
– Airing live National Schools’ Cup draws for the second season, on the ESFA’s YouTube Channel, ESFA TV on Monday 6 February
– Three balls and a Pro:Direct Ball carrier for every school plus some SFW branded bibs for the first 250 schools that registered activity
The campaign isn’t designed to focus wholly on competitive football, but the wide-ranging benefits that being part of a team can have on school age children in England. For example, SFW aims to bring together opportunities for schools to bring football off the pitch and into classrooms, providing learning resources from other ESFA partners that can be useful tools to engage pupils in the wider world of football.
Stuart Botham, ESFA Chair said, “On behalf of the ESFA, I am delighted to see the Association further its partnership with Pro:Direct for Schools’ Football Week 2023. Schools’ Football Week has been, and continues to be, a fantastic platform on which to truly celebrate the many and far reaching benefits of schools’ football. Working on this project alongside an organisation such as Pro:Direct, will allow the ESFA to share our passion for this campaign further than ever before. I have been delighted to see the huge increase in participation from schools across England for this 2023 campaign and we are all looking forward to seeing the activities schools put on from the 6th – 12th February and beyond”
Sam Baldock, Chief Brand Officer from Pro:Direct Sport said ‘We’re really excited to partner with The ESFA on Schools’ Football Week. We think that we can add significant value and hope to make this the most inspiring Schools’ Football Week to date. We plan to provide lots of practical guidance and tools that will help teachers, coaches and volunteers, both during Schools’ Football Week and beyond. We’ll be using our extensive contacts in the game to make sure that there will be plenty of things to get the pupils excited too! This initiative, along with our continued work with the ESFA, gives us the perfect platform to build upon our mutual ambition – to get more children, of all ages and genders, playing football.”
The Importance of Schools’ Football Week:
To share the importance of schools’ football across England
To show proof of the mental and physical health benefits of schools’ football
To share stories and experiences to engage and inspire players and pupils
To heighten the profile of the English Schools’ FA as National Governing Body for schools’ football in England
To elevate and promote participation numbers for schools’ football
To showcase the talent and dedication shown by schools in England to support football as part of the curriculum
The English Schools’ Football Association is delighted that their Chair’s Charity, Sport in Mind, are supporting the Association with Schools’ Football Week 2023.
Schools’ Football Week (SFW), which takes place from the 6 – 12 February 2023, falls on the same week as Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week and Sport in Mind will be supporting the ESFA to provide some mental health resources to schools to coincide with the SFW campaign.
Sport in Mind are the UK charity that transforms the lives and mental health of children and adults through sport and physical activity. Sport in Mind’s innovative programmes are delivered in partnership with the NHS and are co-designed by people with personal experience of mental health problems and healthcare professionals. Their innovative youth programme supports those struggling but also focuses on early intervention and prevention with education programmes on the benefits of being active for good mental health. To date they have supported over 15,000 people, and with our fundraising, they can help many more.
Ahead of the Christmas break and in the run up to the release of the mental health resources to support SFW, Sport in Mind have created a winter wellbeing resource for schools to download for pupils. This may be a useful tool for schools to share with pupils to utilise over the Christmas break. You can download this by clicking here.
The opportunity for the ESFA to tie Schools’ Football Week in with Sport in Mind’s resources and Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week, is allowing the Association to truly reflect and share the poignancy of its “15 Benefits of Schools’ Football” principles with schools and pupils across England.
These resources will be shared as part of the campaign in early 2023.
Let’s support even more pupils to enjoy the benefits of Schools’ Football! The English Schools’ Football Association is delighted to announce the return of Schools’ Football Week, from 6th – 12th February 2023!
Schools’ Football Week (SFW), is an ongoing ESFA initiative 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 payers. 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.
The 2022 campaign saw us embrace the growing participation in girls’ football in schools – promoting the importance of equal access to schools’ football for both girls and boys. In this new season, following the incredible journey of the Lionesses and continuing the trend the ESFA have seen over the last two years, we are going to continue in our pursuit to celebrate girls’ and all schools’ football in 2023.
Schools’ Football Week 2022 saw the ESFA reach huge new levels of participation –
Over 142,000 pupils took part in SFW activity
Over 10,000 teams were involved in SFW
Over 800 schools registered for events
Over 56,000 girls benefitted from schools’ football activity during SFW
Don’t miss your opportunity to be part of this fantastic campaign in 2023!
Save the date
The 2023 campaign will officially launch on Monday 28 November. We will be asking schools, Associations and clubs to register activity, allowing us to see participation levels from across England and to understand the activities taking place to celebrate SFW in your area. The registration link is already live, for those who want to sign up straight away, but full information, along with a toolkit to help you with ideas on how to get involved, will be shared on Monday 28th November.
We have launched a brand new website dedicated to Schools’ Football Week this year and we will be keeping that updated with news stories, resources and information for you to access. Simply visit www.schoolsfootballweek.co.uk to find out more and don’t forget to follow @schoolsfootball on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to be kept up to date with all of our activity.
