Blackburn and Darwen School Games

On Monday 18^th October around 40 pupils from 9 different Primary schools in the Borough took part in the Blackburn with Darwen Disability Football festival, this is the first time the current Primary school children have had a chance to participate in a festival such as this. Schools used their Sports Premium funding to allow the Blackburn and Darwen School Games team and Sporting NRG Limited to organise and deliver the event at Queens Elizabeth Grammar Schools (QEGS) Sports Centre. The event turned out to be a great success and was supported by the school.  We received some great feedback from both pupils and teachers.

The festival was aimed at key stage 2 pupils with a disability or special educational need, to develop the pupil’s social skills, we split all the pupils from different schools into 3 teams; Blackburn, Bolton and Blackpool.

It all kicked off with a warm up which was ran by one of the coaches by Sporting NRG, all the pupils jogged round the hall in various directions and had to listen for instructions. Various commands were shouted which had an action to them which all related to football and interacted with the pupils, John Terry = jump up and head the ball, Ronaldo = dive on the floor etc. The pupils then completed 3 different stations which included 3 football skills such as: passing, dribbling and shooting. As much as the pupils enjoyed them all and thrived from all of them, the majority of the children’s comments on the feedback forms read “I enjoyed the penalty shoot out and scoring against the goalie”.

The event concluded with a friendly non-competitive tournament, and then followed by a presentation where every pupil received a certificate.

Amy Dixon from Sporting NRG said “I enjoyed watching all the pupils from different schools work together as a team by encouraging one another, they all had a chance to show off their ability and skill throughout the afternoon. It was great to see them have fun and hopefully the event is something we can look to do for next year”.

A big thanks you for QEGS for the use of the facility on the day, and also to the coaches from Sporting NRG who delivered the sessions on the day.

Blackburn Community Sports Club has a Disability Football section and train on a weekly basis at QEGS Sports Centre (where the event was held) on a Saturday afternoon 12:00pm – 1:00pm and has the occasional tournament. We currently have children and young adults with a variety of disabilities and a wide range of ages. If you are interested please bring your child down, whether you attended the festival or not.

 

Andrew Mercer School Games Organiser