What are the Projects Aims?
- Increased opportunities for both volunteers and players
- Individual and community wide health benefits
- Improved retention in football beyond/outside of school, through positive experience
- Improved performance levels
- Extended opportunities for socialisation, self development and teamwork
- Raise school/club profile within community
- Increased membership and volunteer base
Who is the Target Group?
- Young people aged 5-16 years of age
- Children who want to join a football team
- Players who maybe less likely to be participating in football for their schools
- Areas with more limited opportunities
Why Create Links With Schools?
- Access to facilities
- Recruitment of new players
- Gain better understanding of your players
- Better use of equipment
- Share skills and expertise
- Help retain players at your club
- Support the school to deliver curriculum
- More chance to work with your players
- Help schools promote healthy, active lifestyle
ERCFA School Club Links Programme 2011
The FA School – Club Links programme works to encourage children to move from playing casual/ school football to an affiliated FA Charter Standard Club.
The programme is designed to build sustainable partnerships between schools and clubs where they do not currently exist. This will help to achieve the overall aim of creating teams and recruiting players for clubs whilst ensuring extracurricular activities for schools.
Through the FA National Game Strategy we have secured funding to support this programme. This funding will allow us to support up to 16 ERCFA clubs through the School – Club Links programme between January and July 2011. We are looking to support clubs who wish to access funding to support the recruitment of new players and create new teams.
I have enclosed an expression of interest form for you to complete and return back to me (before Friday 7th January 2011) if you wish to be considered for the programme. All applications received will be reviewed by the East Riding County FA Football Development Team W/C 10th January. After this date all applicants will be informed if their expression of interest has been successful or not.
What is involved in an FA School – Club Links Programme?
The programme involves structured activity. This will be delivered by an FA qualified coach from the club who must be FA CRB checked. The structure of the delivery is flexible and should be mutually arranged and agreed by the club and the schools involved.
Clubs with a shortage of players or looking to recruit at a specific age group are encouraged to approach schools with this in mind. E.g. Creating an U7 team target Year 1 pupils or recruiting additional U15 players target Year 9 pupils.
All successful clubs will be asked to complete a written agreement with all the schools they work with. This will help clubs create more formal links and allow both parties to understand exactly what is being asked of them throughout the programme.
Monitoring and Evaluation
There will be a small amount of monitoring and evaluation to be completed so the FA can evaluate the effectiveness of the programme and collate the School – Club links figures nationally. This document will be distributed to all clubs involved in the 2011 programme once all of their school coaching sessions have finished.
See the related documents for an example of how a School- Club Links Programme may be structured.
If your club want to be a part of the 2011 ERCFA School Club Links programme please contact Jack Matthews and request an expression of interest form.
For further information on the FA School- Club Links Programme please contact Jack Matthews on 01482 221158 or via email on jack.matthews@eastridingfa.com