A Milestone in Education: Premier League Primary Stars engages more than one million pupils in 2023/24
Premier League Primary Stars, the Premier League’s primary school education programme, supported 1.4 million pupils across England and Wales in academic year 2023-24, thanks to its digital events, activities and resources alone.
Highlights of the 2023/24 Academic Year
Funded by the Premier League, through the Premier League Charitable Fund, Premier League Primary Stars uses the appeal of football to help children to be active and develop essential life skills.
Since its inception in 2017, the programme has engaged over 19,000 schools and more than 70,000 teachers, with more than 18 million attendances by primary school pupils recorded at sessions delivered by professional football club charities to date.
The programme also supports teachers to enhance learning and build their pupils’ confidence in key areas, including PSHE, Physical Education, Maths and English by providing access to free, curriculum-linked digital resources.
The free educational resources, developed by teachers for teachers, are designed to support children to develop skills and values that are crucial to success in later life.
Supporting Teachers and Inspiring Students
More than 650 curriculum-linked resources are available to every primary school in England and Wales.
Resources are developed in collaboration with educational experts and organisations, including the National Literacy Trust, PSHE Association and the BBC to ensure they are aligned with current teaching standards and practices.
Examples include the No Room for Racism resource, created in collaboration with the BBC and the Jamie Johnson series, designed to support key stage 2 classroom-based discussions around racism, allyship and creating inclusive school environments.
Similarly, the new Premier League Primary Stars Footy Phonics resource has been designed to support children on the vital first step in learning to read and complements existing classroom practice. Developed in partnership with the National Literacy Trust, teachers and subject-specialist experts, the resource offers simple, football-related activities to support teachers to revise and reinforce phonics knowledge and skills to help young children aged five-to-seven to find the fun in reading.
Amy McAvoy, a primary school teacher from Southwest London is one of thousands of teachers to regularly use Premier League Primary Stars in the classroom. Amy said: “I regularly used Premier League Primary Stars resources last year with my Year 5s, who were football-obsessed and highly engaged with the content”.
“The resources were fantastic for improving teamwork and collaboration, skills my students struggled with initially but mastered by Year 6. The excitement these resources brought to subjects made a noticeable difference in their engagement and progress.”
The Power of Football in Education
Premier League Primary Stars incorporates well-known footballers such as Harry Kane, Mason Mount, Demi Stokes, Chloe Kelly and Leah Williamson into its lesson content. The inclusion of professional players helps to engage students with the learning material and reinforce key messages about the importance of teamwork, resilience, and leadership.
According to research conducted by Premier League Primary Stars in the summer of 2023, 90% of teachers surveyed observed improvements in student teamwork, and 89% reported enhanced communication skills among their students. Additionally, 81% of teachers using Premier League Primary Stars resources noted that these tools helped improve their ability to teach PE and sports.
Looking Ahead to the New School Year
As the new school year begins, Premier League Primary Stars remains committed to supporting teaching and learning through its range of free, flexible, and adaptable resources. The new academic year will see the introduction of new curriculum-linked resources alongside virtual events for pupils, as well as providing professional development opportunities for teachers and practitioners on a range of topics. New resources for the year will include Anti-Bullying Week content, developed in partnership with the Anti-Bullying Week Alliance, Challenging Gender Stereotypes and new resources for running social action projects to help pupils give back to their communities.
Find Out More
For educators and schools that have yet to experience the benefits of Premier League Primary Stars, now is the perfect time to explore what the programme has to offer. You can register on the website here for free, flexible, and easily adaptable resources that you can use for classroom and playground-based activity: https://plprimarystars.com/.
