June 6, 2022
The UEFA Women’s European football competition kicks off on the 6th July and runs until 31st July. England are the hosts of the competition this year with matches being played across the country. They will be joined by 15 other nations in the tournament, including Northern Ireland who are taking part for the first time.
It is the second time that England has hosted the competition and there is sure to be a lot of interest in the event. It’s also the perfect opportunity to bring football into the classroom with Purple Mash and Serial Mash.
We have a range of resources in Purple Mash that schools can use over the month. For each of the four groups, there are template fact files that children can use to research the countries taking part, including attractions, languages spoken and previous football achievements. Within each folder, alongside the fact files there is also a template that will help pupils write match reports about the teams. The match report template includes prompts for children to think about, for example, who the player of the match was, the best and the worst moments, key points of each half and useful phrases to help the children structure their writing.
Children can use our player profile to write about one of the players taking part in the tournament and complete research into their background. They could also use our female footballer Mashcam to put themselves in the boots of the players and write down their thoughts in the speech bubbles. How would you be feeling to be representing your country at a major international tournament?
As well as projects linked directly to the Euros, we also have a range of football-themed creative resources for children. You can use our football shirt template to get the children to design their own shirt for their national team. The children could research how designs have changed over the years and design their own shirt, maybe for the next tournament. Children can also make their own football game within 2Code or try avoiding being tackled by the other players and collect as many footballs as they can in our 2DIY 3D football game. They can also use this template to edit the game and make their own.
Using 2Create a Story, children can also edit this football story or could make their own. There are also fact files on some of England's most well-known female footballers, The Lionesses, that children can research.
Within Serial Mash we also have a collection of football-themed books in our 5-A-Side collection, perfect for reading throughout the month. The collection includes the following thunderous titles: Play Off; Mystery Player; Beach Battle, and Deep in the Forest.
The UEFA Women's Euros would also be a perfect time to read Striker Boy, the page-turning football thriller with plenty of action both on and off the pitch. Can 13-year-old Nat Dixon save the club he loves from relegation? There are three ways to enjoy Striker boy, by paperback (a special not-for-profit edition published in aid of Mind), on a kindle, or downloaded as an audiobook. As well as being an exceptional story, Striker Boy is supported by a range of free resources. These include a literacy activity pack, an emotional resilience activity pack and an emotional resilience assembly PowerPoint.
UEFA have also created a Women’s euro 2022 Football in Schools programme, to engage your pupils with a range of free and exciting resources to help bring the biggest women’s football event in Europe to life.
Whatever you do for #WEURO2022 we would love you to share your work on either our Twitter or Facebook pages.
