Alleyn's School Football Outreach
As an Independent Schools' Football Association Focus School and Junior Hub School Alleyn’s takes great pride in providing first class football opportunities for children who attend the school but also for the wider community. Alleyn’s plays host to tournaments, festivals, cup competitions for a wide range of ages and abilities as well as offering staff CPD courses every year.
The School also works closely with south London schools to facilitate their good work within the game.
Aims
The aims of the project are to raise the standard of football coaching and provision for all pupils in the School's local community. Children in the local area and their teachers are keen to develop and participate in football but lack the infrastructure and facilities to make as much progress as they would like.
Crucial to the success of the project is the commitment from teaching staff from all schools and a willingness on the part of partner schools to adopt the right sort of mentality towards football development and competition.
Background
Alleyn's has been providing structured competitive tournaments for children in the local community for several years but since receiving Focus and Hub School status we have been much more targeted in our approach, developing appropriate and relevant aspects of the game with different age groups. The School is concious at all times of highlighting the importance of best practice.
Resources
The school pitches, equipment and teaching staff are essential to the programme's success. Sixth Form students also make a valuable contribution: refereeing, helping with delivery of skills sessions, and taking on numerous other reponsibilities.
The School finances the events that we run, providing coaching packs, and qualified referees when appropriate.
Impact
The continuing improvement that we see in the standard of football at our events serves as a good indicator of progress being made. Activities are structured so that children visit the school several times over the course of the year where their progress can be observed.
Pupil Involvement
The doors are opened to children from local schools as early as Year 2. We host an annual festival where children come along and spend the afternoon playing football. Alleyn’s PE staff spend the first part of the afternoon coaching the children and helping them develop fundamental football skills. These skills are then applied in a number of small-sided games. Skills-based festivals are also provided for Year 3 and 4 children and are always make a great afternoon packed full of fun and learning.
Once children reach the latter part of their primary education their visits to Alleyn’s come more in the form of entering the league and cup competitions which we offer. By this stage schools are generally providing good quality coaching as part of their own curricular and co-curricular programmes and our role becomes one of supporting them in this by providing occasions where children can play in an environment that is competitive but still primarily concerned with skill development and fun.
The South East London Junior Football League has been based at Alleyn’s for the past ten years. Seven schools play fixtures against each other during the Advent term and all of the schools then attend a week of festivals and tournaments just before half-term.
In the Lent term we offer tournaments for every age group from Years 3-6 and a separate festival for girls.
Frequency
By the time they leave their primary schools many children from local schools will have made countless visits to Alleyn’s over several years and have enjoyed many hours of skills training and match play on our grounds.