Walsall footballers help school pupils learn the joy of moving as part of national programme
It was a day for youngsters from a Walsall school to learn about the joy of movement and doing more physical activity alongside professional footballers.
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The Year 5 and 6 pupils from Hillary Primary School in Walsall enjoyed a sporting session alongside Walsall FC players Sam Hornby and Josh Gordon and as part of the Joy of moving programme.
The programme was set up by Ferrero UK in partnership with EFL in the Community and the session was delivered by the Walsall FC Foundation as a way of promoting the programme, which is a six-week programme targeted at emphasising the joy of movement and the concept of fun.
Both Sam Hornby and Josh Gordon took part in the activities alongside the pupils, with Walsall FC Foundation health and wellbeing manager Chris Springthorpe saying it had been a great experience for everyone involved.
He said: "It was great for the players to come and be involved with the play part of the session and actively help the kids by being part of the groups who were there and we had a target game where the teams had to hit certain targets.
"It was good for the players to get involved with that, but then also for the pupils to be able to speak to the players about how they keep a balanced and varied lifestyle and how they enjoy playing, what they like when they're training and the things they like to do.
"I think it was also good from the players perspective to talk about how they have gotten to where they are and I think the kids loved meeting a professional footballer as it has a huge impact on them."
Mr Springthorpe said the day might also see the club gain a few new fans and develop a relationship with the school in the future and said the next steps for the foundation were to continue rolling the programme out across Walsall.
He said: "We've got to deliver this programme across Walsall and we're targeting between 15 and 20 schools, with 10 already signed up, so we need to get at least five more by July.
"That means taking this into schools, giving them the information, then adding in things like players coming in and helping with sessions and taking this out to more schools and more children and giving them more information and more sessions.
"We've also got sessions in the summer that we need to deliver at festivals and that could mean targeting older children and seeing if we can have an impact on the entire school in the future."
