Last week saw Blackwell Primary School, St Margarets CofE Primary School, Furzefield Primary School, Rusper Primary School and The Mill Primary Academy graduate from their 10-week Premier League Primary Stars (PLPS) programme.
This programme aims to: Improve Wellbeing; Attainment; Attendance and Lifestyle Choices for the pupils and their progress is tracked regularly to help them improve weekly.
Pupils are encouraged to adopt the PL Values and link them to their everyday lives in school, the playground and at home. Which are Be Connected, Be Ambitious, Be Fair and Be Inspiring.
PL Reading stars is a programme created in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. This session is targeted towards reluctant readers in Years 5 & 6 who would benefit from using football as a tool to engage.
The sessions run for an hour and half – 45 minutes of this being classroom based and another 45 minutes having a form of PE lesson, mostly focusing on football as this gives the pupils an incentive to learn but we also work on their multi- skills looking a co-ordination and balance to help them to learn.
The graduations were hosted at the Crawley Town Broadfield Stadium, which provided students with a tour of the stadium itself, a tournament on our 3G Ballcourt and an awards ceremony where the children were presented with certificates.
Luke Beckess, PLPS Coordinator, said this about the week of graduations, “We had a fantastic week, welcoming five schools to the Crawley Town FC Broadfield Stadium. Running this programme is so rewarding, when you can see the improvement in the pupil’s learning week to week. By the end of the programme all the kids enjoy reading and learning and have a greater confidence in themselves.”
The Mill Primary Academy was also lucky to have a special guest attend their graduation. Henry Smith MP for Crawley came down to meet the pupils, and walk with them as they had their stadium tour. Henry said about the day, “It was fantastic to visit the graduation, thanks for your work helping inspire Crawley Primary Kids with boosted confidence and skills to do better with maths and English at school.”
The PLPS programme has been highly regarded in Crawley, and this can be seen with the demand and there are number of schools wanting to get involved.
In a recent study undertaken at the start and end of the 10-week programme, the participants rated their confidence on a scale. 30% felt confident at the start of the programme, but this rose to 88% by the end of the 10-weeks. This course encouraged the participants to express themselves a little more and to be more confident in both learning, communication and in sport.
Another question was on whether the participants enjoyed learning. Those who strongly agreed went from 38% at the start of the programme to 65% by the end of it.
Crawley Town PLPS has recruited three schools for the next cohort in the winter term, Crawley Down CofE Primary School, Forge Wood Primary School and Waringlid Primary School and we are excited to launch their 10-week programmes in January.
If you would like more details or information on PLPS sessions, email community@crawleytownfc.com
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