Football focus

Like it or not, the World Cup is going to elbow its way into our, and our students', consciousness for much of the next few weeks. Some teachers will get sucked in to the excitement, while others will long for the thing to end. But all can use the tournament as a vehicle to drive pupils' learning in a wide range of curriculum areas. And the opportunities are by no means confined to the football-mad kids alone!

Words: Steve McCormack

1. Stats Corner

The 64 matches, each with a different outcome, throw up a mountain of statistics that can be harnessed for several data-handling objectives. For each of the eight World Cup groups, pupils can keep ongoing tally-charts and block graphs to record goals scored and cautions given by the referee. (one point for a yellow card and two for a red is ideal to reinforce basic algebra).

For each team, the difference between goals scored and conceded, can be calculated to practise the concept of positive and negative numbers. The more able students can be encouraged to keep a record of average (mean) goals per game, calculating, on a daily basis, how this value changes as the tournament progresses. A gifted and talented group could organise a competition, for adults and children in the school, to predict the mean goals-per-game tally for the whole tournament. All basic statistics and ongoing results and information are available at http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06

2.What's behind the teams?

A tournament with 32 teams, from almost every corner of the world, is a great vehicle for widening and deepening students' geographical awareness. As a starter, use the pull-out poster contained in the bundle of this magazine sent to your school, or any world map, to identify where each country is located, and fill in basic information in the appropriate boxes. Then, perhaps on a day-by-day basis, focus on each country in more detail. Possible activities include: researching and painting the country's flag; or finding one footballer and one other famous person from the country (many of the players play for Premiership clubs in England and are well known to football-watchers). Longer tasks might include researching living conditions, diet, common jobs, history and culture. For much of the basic information, go to
www.national-anthems.net

3. Report writing

The reporting, and discussion, of football makes us all wax lyrical, none more so than journalists. A study of football reporting can tease out several useful literacy lessons, especially when related articles are compared. Older classes can be shown contrasting excerpts from pairs of reports. These could be a match report in two different types of newspaper, an optimistic pre-match piece and a disappointing postmortem, a critical piece about fan behaviour and a positive account of visiting fans. Ask students to look for loaded adjectives and verbs, and identify words that characterise the mood of each article. Younger classes could be shown a collection of headlines, and asked to write their own short report of a World Cup match, or one of their own, using some of the words in the headlines. Those not interested in football can use the same words and create a story on another theme or sport.

4. Reading the Game

Why not get England footballers to kick off a lesson? Joe Cole and Rio Ferdinand are among the England team members who have lined up to appear on a DVD by the National Literacy Trust that discusses the joys of reading.

The 16-minute film is available free to all state schools via local authority literacy consultants. See www.readingthegame.co.uk for more information, plus ideas of how to use the DVD, other teaching ideas using football, and competitions. Posters featuring some of the footballers involved are also available via the website.

5. What time's kick-off in...?

Show students how to work out the time difference between match kick-off time (in Germany) and both teams' home countries www.worldtimezone.com. A globe helps cement the idea of time zones, and this can also lead to work on seasonal and climatic differences and how this can affect performance.

6. Fantasy Football

The Schools Fantasy League website is running a World Cup activity, along the same lines as the ongoing competition that's based on the English Premier League, already used by 1,500 schools across the country. Participation engages pupils in several National Curriculum-related areas. Details at www.schoolsfl.com

7. 1966 and all that

Set up a history or citizenship project to research what life was like in 1960s Britain (when England last hosted — and, of course, won — the World Cup). Ask students to research and list some differences between life then and now: who was Prime Minister? What music did children listen to? How much did
a packet of crisps cost? What technology did people have in their homes? What gadgets had not yet been invented? A few photographs from the 1960s should prompt ideas. Pupils could interview somebody who remembers where they were when England won the World Cup — were they watching it on TV or listening to it on the radio? How did they feel? What was their daily life like?

For more info

Your school should have received a couple of copies of the Teachers World Cup poster. For extra copies go to www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications or call Prolog on 0845 602 2260, quoting reference DfES 0461 2006 POS-EN

FREE NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE

To download pages and pictures from the Mirror newspaper from 1966, visit www.arcitext.com/edu.htm

This content was published in May 2006 and may not reflect current policy

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