The FA Primary Teachers Award was designed to provide a basic introduction to the skills required when planning to deliver a KS1 or KS2 Physical Education lesson involving the beautiful game.
Organised by FA National Game Coaching in Education Manager, Roger Davies, and Sarah Green, a regional PE and coaching in education coordinator, the course introduces The FA’s Future Game philosophy by creating a learning environment.
It also includes elements associated with working with a school team linked to the Youth development review.
'We are basing everything around The DNA and Future Game, and trying to put it into a context for teachers'
Roger Davies, National Game Coaching in Education manager
Speaking to TheFA.com, Davies said: “We have piloted a new six-hour course that is aimed at primary school teachers and is designed to give them a little bit of confidence to enable them to deliver football within a school setting.
“We are basing everything around The England DNA and Future Game, and trying to put it into a context for teachers.”
Davies continued: “Teachers have a fantastic skill set within the classroom, so hopefully with this training, we can say to them, ‘Here’s a little bit of football, bring it alive within the schoolyard’.
“We found that people just want to know the rules and what format they should be playing. There’s lots of education to do, six hours is not enough, but it’s a start.”
Since January 2014, 756 people have registered on to the Level 3 Physical Education & School Sport Award, and since September 2013 The FA have delivered to 943 candidates on the pilot for the Primary Teachers’ Award.
Over 50 teachers took part on Tuesday
Over 50 have attended the latest course, and Davies says it allows coaches to find out what teachers want to learn themselves as well as providing all other necessary information – all with the aim of helping youngsters to fall in love with the national game.
“We ask what they want from it,” explained Davies. “In the first part they were making notes of the parts that they liked.
"We do provide them within a framework as such, but we look at movement skills for ages five to eleven, we look at multi-directional practices and then we moved on to directional games and practices.
“Finally, we look at what a matchday looks like. A lot of those taking part have to run the school team and they wanted to know the basics, such as; what the warm-up looks like and how to do a half-time team talk.”
And Davies explained how vital teachers are to the development of the next generation of players.
“We have spelt it out to them today how important teachers are to the development of a player as for many kids their first experience of football is at school.
'If we can create a fun and enjoyable environment that they want to learn in, that will help them fall in love with the game'
“Hopefully, if we can create a fun and enjoyable environment that they want to learn in, then that will help them fall in love with the game and help inspire and enthuse them to be the future stars.
“If we can give teachers the hook today, then we hope that they will want more and we have a number of options of support for them.”
England Under-21s Head Coach and Head of England Youth Teams Gareth Southgate also gave his backing to the initiative.
"Students who actively engage with high quality physical education and sport programmes often demonstrate greater self-confidence which can lead to stronger young leaders within schools and support a far more positive outlook on both their studies and general attitudes to life,” said Southgate.
“This in turn can result in better academic outcomes not to mention a more pleasant, supportive and friendly school environment."
"I would urge all school leaders and governors to support developments within Physical Education and to recognise the potential benefits of the subject across schools."
