If you have been following my blog for a while you might know that as well as being a blogger I am in fact a primary school teacher. I stopped teaching full-time when Gracie was born but have done supply teaching for the past 3 years as I missed it so much. Being able to shape young minds is such a privilege, it is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world and I do hope I can go back to it full-time one day.
As a teacher, anything that revolves around schools and teaching will always be of interest and of course being a parent now I get to see it from both sides. So when I was invited along to hear about a new initiative from the Premier League, I was instantly excited by it all. At first I thought it would be a sports program, something to encourage young footballers, but it is so much more and quite frankly, brilliant.
It takes a lot to impress me, but I can tell you that I am very impressed by the whole program and wish I could be in a classroom right now to deliver it!
You may have noticed this advert running on tv over the last few days…
Our most ambitious community project to date – #PLPrimaryStars – is aiming to inspire the next generation…
More: https://t.co/Y5xohq9ZiS pic.twitter.com/FVDObSxeoh
— Premier League (@premierleague) March 31, 2017
It is the first advert the Premier League have ever run. Isn’t that crazy? But if you think about it they don’t really need to advertise do they? But this is different, this isn’t about the sport, it is about educating our children.
As a teacher I have taught 100’s of children and I can tell you right now, if you want to teach a child you need to spark their interest. If you want them to really engage then you need to find a topic that will resonate with them, something that they recognise and relate to. The Premier League have put a huge amount of time and effort into creating FREE national curriculum-linked teaching resources that will help teachers to reach children in a new and exciting way. It isn’t just for PE either, but for maths, literacy, PSHE and more. Whether a child loves football or not, it is something that they will all be familiar with and as a teacher I can tell you it will be so much more exciting than ‘if jimmy has 5 sweets and he eats 2….’.
At the launch last week I was able to meet Gabby Logan, Rachel Riley (Countdown maths expert), Cressida Cowell (author of How to Train your Dragon) and Dan Freedman (author of the Jaime Johnson series) who have all been involved in the program. It was so nice to hear them talk about their involvement and see their enthusiasm first-hand.
Rachel has been heavily involved in creating the maths resources. She spoke of how maths seems to be viewed as a ‘geeky’ subject but that we can change that view by using football league tables and other stats as the theme. Children need to see that maths is a life skill and by using a subject they know about, hopefully it will catch their attention.
Cressida has been involved in gathering the books for the FREE book boxes. She spoke about how many schools are having to close down their libraries and that with parents neglecting to read to their children it is more important than ever to get more books into schools. I know this first-hand as I once had a little boy ask me what a bedtime story was. Honestly my heart broke in two.
Richard Scudamore, Executive Chairman, Premier League said:
“We are very excited to launch Premier League Primary Stars, our new national education programme that will use the power and popularity of football to inspire children to work hard and enjoy English, Maths and a range of other subjects.”
You may have noticed I have put emphasis on the word FREE throughout as honestly – how amazing is that? I love that such a huge organisation is giving back in such an amazing way. They have set themselves a target of reaching 10’000 schools by 2019 and they want to be in all schools eventually. I am going to be talking to the head at Gracie’s school and I cannot see any reason why she wouldn’t sign up – it is just brilliant!
If you would like to nominate your child’s school then you can do so here or you can tell them about it and send them over to the Premier Stars website to find out more.
I’m working in a paid relationship with the Premier League on their #PLPrimaryStars campaign.
Penny
Wednesday 19th of April 2017
Love that you went back to teaching because you missed it, I do miss lots of elements. This got me so fired up, brilliant the PL are giving back!
Stephanie
Monday 10th of April 2017
That is going to work for so many kids, and they are going to learn a lot from this programme.
Lucy Melissa Smith
Monday 10th of April 2017
How exciting! I'm not a big football fan but I know a lot of kids who would definitely more interested in subjects like maths etc. if it was applied to the sport that they love! x
Jayne @ Sticky Mud and Belly Laughs
Sunday 9th of April 2017
What an awesome campaign! And such a fab way to encourage little ones to learn :) x
Ana De- Jesus
Sunday 9th of April 2017
I had no idea that you were a Primary school teacher, but how nice that they invited you back to take a look at the programme. If maths was as interesting as the Premier League has made it , I would have probably got better grades!