Teachers from a number of Barnsley FC’s partner Primary Schools came together at Oakwell to gain their FA’s Primary Teachers Award.

Teachers and trainee teachers from All Saints Academy, Kings Oak Primary, West Meadows Primary, Lacewood Primary, Highgate Primary, Parkside Primary, Carlton Primary, Holy Rood Primary and Jump Primary School undertook a range of Physical Education drills, games and exercises to help the delivery of their own sessions in school.

All who took part passed the course and will receive their awards from the FA.

Around 5,000 qualified primary school teachers or trainee teachers have already benefited from the free award course since it was created in 2013.

Football is used as the driving vehicle of the FA’s philosophy to help increase learning for Key Stage One and Two P.E. sessions and how invasion games can be used to aid development.

The FA’s Regional Coaching and Development Manager, Chris Welburn, led the session and is proud to continue working with Barnsley Football Club to deliver these extremely useful and beneficial sessions.

He said: “We’re working with Premier League Primary Stars funded clubs to support teachers with the delivery of the FA Primary Teachers Award.

“We have three main aims; To develop subject confidence within P.E., add value to people’s existing learning and develop confidence and self-esteem to those who may not deliver P.E. regularly.

“We’re here to help the partner schools of Reds in the Community to make sure we’re supporting their teachers, giving them short and long-term lesson plans they can use to further the development of their pupils.

“The FA feels proud and privileged to deliver this certificate based course free of charge to Barnsley FC and the teachers.”

Wayne Bullimore, CEO of Reds in the Community, is thrilled that the charity is able to run such initiatives that will continue to benefit the local community.

“This has been a great opportunity for us to host this course. With the ongoing support of Chris and the FA in offering these courses, it will ensure that when we’re delivering sport in schools, it will be of the very best provision.

“We hope the experience had by those who attended this afternoon was extremely beneficial and that they took away some valuable skills to implement in their Physical Education sessions.

“These sorts of opportunities are great for staff and for the charity as a whole,” he added.