Over the past five years, Premier League Primary Stars has been supporting young people across England and Wales. The programme uses the appeal of the Premier League and professional football clubs to inspire children to be active and develop important life skills. Albion Foundation staff deliver Primary Stars by working with teachers to lead fun, educational sessions in a range of subjects within local partner schools.
One of the Foundation’s long-standing partnerships is Bleakhouse Primary School in Oldbury, where 45 pupils have special educational needs – over 10% of the children at the school. Craig Wilson, Senior PE and Classroom Intervention Coach at the Albion Foundation, is based at Bleakhouse Primary School and teaches to all classes across the two-form entry school.
Through his planning and delivery of PE, Craig has had a brilliant impact on not just the pupils, but the Bleakhouse teaching staff too. His session delivery has been of such a high standard, that Key Stage 1 teachers have requested Craig and the Foundation to lead Teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshops in the future.
Year 2 have benefitted exceptionally from Craig’s PE lessons, with pupils developing their agility, balance, and coordination, through fun, themed PE lessons. One child who has shown outstanding progression as the lessons advanced, has been Kayson. Kayson is on the autism spectrum and can be hard to interact with as he struggles with verbal communication. In early sessions, he would often leave the class, or be disengaged throughout.
As the sessions continued and built momentum, Kayson gradually started to get involved and explore the different PE activities, observing his classmates jumping up and down, travelling at different speeds and climbing using a variety of equipment and resources. This increased his desire to join in and participate in the lessons, with Kayson beginning to engage with and enjoy the sessions, while showing small signs of starting to socially interact with his classmates.
Lauren Dudley-Bennett, Year 2 teacher at Bleakhouse Primary School commented: “Kayson has thrived in PE, since joining Year 2 in September. He’s developed many skills such as jumping, rolling and throwing and catching a ball – to help develop his hand-eye coordination.
“Kayson has built a positive relationship with Craig during their sessions, in turn his behaviour has improved during sessions, and he always completes the task set out with a smile on his face.”
Kayson has started to show a higher understanding of how to complete the actions and learning outcomes within the lessons – showing enjoyment when participating in gymnastics and confidently using equipment without the aid of Craig, teaching staff or his fellow pupils. Craig has made excellent progress with Kayson and has broken down many barriers to participation through strong, effective planning and enthusiastic, fun delivery. The Foundation’s support at Bleakhouse Primary School will continue for the remainder of the academic year, with staff keen to start encouraging Kayson to verbally communicate more frequently.
Craig exclaimed: “Kayson has surprised all of us with how much he is understanding and how active he has become in PE. It’s fantastic to watch him explore ways of moving across the equipment and working with others.
“I am excited to see how he progresses further in the future.”
For more information on our Premier League Primary Stars offer, please contact Glenn Short – Schools Partnership Manager: glenn.short@albionfoundation.co.uk