Encourage football in your school

Encourage football in your school

Football is one of the most popular sports to play and is ideal for socialising and bonding whilst keeping fit and healthy. However, football has been seen as a sport for boys and men for years with not a lot of encouragement for others to join in. With the rise in popularity for female football, due to the Lionesses winning the women’s Euros in 2022, it is crucial for SBMs to encourage everyone to play.

It can be difficult to get many students involved in football, particularly girls, as there is a lack of interest, inclusion and education on all types of football. To help you, we have provided some tips and activities to encourage football in your school.

Invest in the right equipment

Before you can encourage students to participate in football, you need to review your current equipment if you have any. This could be as simple as checking of the equipment is safe or how much you have got. Doing this will help you determine what you need to purchase and how much you need.

Liaise with your staff to see what they need to carry football sessions out to figured out extras you may have to purchase. Your staff are the main priority as they will be encouraging all students to play football and will need inclusive equipment to do so.

This could be as little as changing the type or quantity of footballs you have or as big as providing training packs and goals.

Teach your school about football

Create time in your day to educate your students and staff about all types of football. Doing this will help students and staff understand that football can be for everyone. It also sheds light on equality within football. Show a variety of football role models to inspire children and see people like themselves enjoying the sport. Get staff on board too who enjoy playing football in their spare time and host an assembly to inspire students. Invite special football guests to make a case for playing football alongside your staff.

Celebrate football events

To encourage football in your school, why not celebrate key football events? Involve the whole school in celebrating the sport getting staff to base activities around events. These events can be something as big as the World Cup or Euros. Advise your staff to create football activities to celebrate with such as crafts, games and even integrating it into subjects such as geography.

Hold a celebration party for students to attend where you can offer certain games to watch and activities to join in. You could even set up a goal for children to have a go at being a striker or goalkeeper. Mention the key football event in assemblies and all the fun and exciting activities you have to offer, to engage students with the sport.

Work with staff to tailor games for different abilities

Sometimes students don’t want to participate in football due to the game being difficult for them or uncomfortable. It is your priority to ensure that you work with your staff to make football games accessible and inclusive for everyone. You should plan and tailor games with different abilities in mind.

Firstly, remind your staff that when they are choosing teams, they must ensure that there is a mixture of abilities within each team. Doing this allows a fair game to be played, leading to an equal chance of either team winning. Then, plan the rules of the game together using the traditional rules as a base. Tweak these to cater for all abilities so that children feel comfortable playing.

Ensure that teachers show students how to work together to help each other during a game. This makes an inclusive game and a chance for students to socialise with each other.

Encourage competition

Competition gives students the strive to participate in games, so it is important to encourage this. However, competition doesn’t have to come from winning or needing to win. Remind your staff that every game doesn’t have to be about winning and that they can remove that as the primary objective for students. Instead, suggest that staff should provide healthy competition through feedback on children’s performances and improvement. This introduces small competition to students so they can feel comfortable and encouraged to improve their skills.

Offer your school incentives

Entice reluctant students in your school to join in the fun of football through offering them incentives. Ensure that your staff follows through with these incentives and offers students feedback. Positive feedback gives children the motivation to play as they will want to progress their skills giving them an interest in the sport.

Allow staff to offer small rewards for performance and hard work after each game. You can even hold a school wide reward for students. This could be for the child who has progressed the most or for winners in a competitive game or to celebrate students who play. Offer them trophies or medals and even give small gifts like chocolate for outstanding circumstances. Make sure to stock up on stickers and certificates that teachers can use as small rewards.

Organise football themed trips

A fantastic way to encourage football in your school is by organising football themed trips for students to go on. This can be done across the whole school to develop an interest in the sport. Suggest to staff about football stadium tours with talks from professionals, football museums and even visiting local football pitches to play outside of school.

To further entice students to join in, you could offer exclusive football trips to those who are part of the after-school club. Doing this will spark children’s interest in joining the club to go on special and enjoyable trips. Making football clubs allows students to have full control with the sport as it’s in their own time too.

Pair with a football charity or programme

Due to a lack of funding, it can seem costly to buy the right equipment and set up a good football programme to offer students. If you feel like your school will struggle with implementing football, then you can turn to some football charities or programmes for schools to help.

The FA programme offers schools resource packs with plenty of resources, videos and worksheets. Using this programme could make a difference between a resourced sports curriculum and a lack of funding. Printing these resources out for your school to use is low in price compared to what the programme can generate for your school. Pin them up in common areas in your school and share with staff to create a football culture and interest from students.

Premier league primary stars also offer plenty of free resources to assist your school with creating a in depth football strategy. This programme aims to get students active and learning other subjects through football too. Download and print out their resources to share with your school.

You can also claim small grants for football through sport England. They are assigned to not-for-profit projects so you can use it for supporting your school if you aren’t selling this on to the community. This can massively help with funding to provide the right support and equipment needed to involve more students.

Use these tips and activities to encourage football in your school and determine what changes you need to implement to entice reluctant students. Work with your staff to plan and gain feedback on all things football to offer the best strategy to your students. Invest in key areas such as equipment, to ensure you have plenty for everyone and to be as inclusive as possible. Keep on reviewing and updating this strategy once in place and monitor to see if these changes worked.

Assist staff and students further in your sports programme with our ‘top sports equipment you need for your school’ blog.