National Schools' Football Week

Schools’ Football Week 2020 – Round up

Schools Football week 2020 took place from the 3rd- 7th of February and encouraged more than 22,000 school children from 2704 teams to take part in some sort of footballing activity throughout the week. The ESFA registered schools participating in a variety of activities from crossbar challenges and staff football matches to pupils wearing football shirts for the day and raising money for local charities. It has been a delight to see so many schools and teams get involved with helping to celebrate all things schools’ football!

The ESFA recruited former Schools’ Football, turned professional players, Everton’s Michael Keane and Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham to make videos backing the campaign and talking about their own personal benefits from Schools’ Football – a great start to the week. The campaign was also backed by various ESFA partners, who provided some great prizes and incentives for those schools and teams that got involved with the initiative. Here’s a selection of just some of the tweets from schools and Community Trusts who supported SFW 2020…

Winners

Wembley Tour for 30 pupils

As a prize for getting involved in Schools’ football week and registering activity, each school was entered into a draw to win 30 Tickets for a tour of Wembley Stadium courtesy of the FA. Over 340 different schools and teams registered their activity and the ESFA is delighted to announce the winner of the 30 tour tickets as Lings Primary School from Northampton. Although the school was picked at random, their social content also showed that they went above and beyond during the week, replicating the Soccer AM “you know the drill” videos during their break times. These were great to watch and allowed the whole school to get involved.

Bespoke Panini Sticker Spread

Thursday 6th February saw the Schools Football Week – Game On initiative launch, which was aimed at focusing on as much football activity as possible during one day of Schools’ Football Week. Everyone who used the #SFWGameOn hashtag on social media was entered into a draw to win a unique Panini sticker album spread of their team ( example shown below from last season’s international side). The lucky winner of this incredible prize is Ridgeway High School from Merseyside. ESFA Photographer, 353 Photography will head to Ridgeway School for their photos ready for Panini to put together and frame!

Free football kit, courtesy of Pendle

Finally, everyone who submitted a response to the Schools’ Football Week Pupil Survey was entered into a draw to win a full team kit courtesy of ESFA partners and official kit providers, Pendle Sportswear. Tithe Farm Primary School from Bedfordshire were drawn as winners of this competition. Both Pendle and the ESFA are delighted to be able to provide a free kit for this school in recognition of their pupils’ involvement in SFW.

Pupil Survey

As part of Schools’ Football Week 2020 the ESFA created a pupil survey on various topics surrounding schools football and the sport as a whole. This was a unique opportunity for pupils to give their feedback and opinions and the results were very interesting. Over 150 pupils responded to the survey, including providing feedback on whether they felt they had personally benefited from the ESFA’s list of “15 benefits of schools’ football” – the result of this particular question was excellent news for the Association –

Social Impact

Schools’ Football Week 2020 was largely a social media based campaign, aimed at reaching as many people as possible to promote the benefits of playing Schools’ Football. The ESFA’s social posts created over 115,000 impressions from followers on Twitter alone, during the course of the week.

Sports Minister, Nigel Adams, was also heavily supportive of the Schools’ Football week campaign and started off the week with a visit to Oaklands School in Bethnal Green, one of the schools that had registered their activity with the ESFA. During his visit, he talked to the pupils and teachers about why they love playing schools football and the mental health benefits of the sport, linking together Schools’ Football Week and Children’s Mental Health Week. He even got a chance to show off his skills during a kick about at break time. On the Friday, the Sports Minister released a video challenging pupils to find a a ball and a friend and show him their skills with a Keepy Uppie Challenge. We saw loads of great videos of pupils and teachers attempting the challenge!

As an Association, the ESFA has been delighted with this year’s uptake on Schools’ Football Week and is grateful to partners, the FA, Panini, 353 Photography and Pendle Sportswear, specifically for their support with the campaign. Also huge thanks to all the schools, teams, SSPs, Government agencies and Community Trusts that got involved with celebrating and highlighting the wonderful world of Schools’ Football.

National Schools' Football Week, The World of Schools' Football

Schools’ Football Week – Game On 2020

A day dedicated to promoting as much Schools’ Football activity as possible across England

Schools’ Football Week, an ESFA initiative, is a campaign designed to highlight both the importance and scale of Schools’ Football activity across England. From schools, to clubs, to community trusts and beyond, the benefits are the same and the ESFA are proud to govern and provide activity for children to get involved.

Schools’ Football Week – Game On: Thursday 6 February 2020

As part of this season’s SFW celebrations, the ESFA are introducing a new initiative to try and bring together all schools’ football players and participants on one, specific day – celebrating the wonderful world of Schools’ Football!

We want to use this opportunity to see how much activity we can register across all age groups, communities, players, pupils and teams – so we need your help!

All participants are encouraged to share posts on social media platforms, Twitter and Instagram, tagging @SchoolsFootball and using the hashtag #SFWGameOn to share the activity taking place in your area. However big or small, we want to know about it and share in your success and celebrations. If you can, include in your messages how many players are taking part as well!

Everyone that registers activity using the #SFWGameOn hashtag on Thursday 6 February will be in with a chance of winning a money-can’t-buy prize, courtesy of our partners, Panini UK. Each school, team or club that participates will be entered into a draw to win a framed Panini sticker spread of their team – take a look at what they created for our England U18 squad last year…

Don’t miss out!

Not only can you win a wonderful bespoke gift for your eager participants, but don’t miss the fantastic opportunity to share your successes with us this Schools’ Football Week.