Bolton Wanderers School of Football have recently finished piloting a new numeracy based project at Brownlow Fold Primary School. With Lofty asking the questions and football being the common theme throughout the worksheets it has proved a great way of getting the children engaged with their numeracy work.
Over a 4 week period the children have completed worksheets based around 'One Step Operations', 'Story Problems', and 'Two Step Problems' whilst each week finishing with a fun task which ranged from picking a dream team within a £40m budget, working out a league champions by creating the league table and also desiging a new football kit.
The children also got to take part in physical football activities after they had completed the work based around team work and numeracy. At the final lesson Lofty the Lion came along to present certificates of achievement to the children who had taken part in the lessons.
School of Football Manager Steve Obertelli said "Using football as a tool to help children work on their numeracy skills in the classroom has proved a great success. The competitive behaviour that football brings to a pitch was seen in the classroom, the children were striving to better themselves and ensure they got the right answers. I feel the pilot has gone really well and I would like to express my thanks to Niall Owens and Janet Pearson (Year 4 teacher and Headteacher at Brownlow Fold Primary School respectively) for allowing us to pilot the lessons at their school. Now the challenge is to find some funding so that we can take this project to over 20 Primary Schools in Bolton, be this through sponsorship or through an external funder, but after seeing how this project has been received by the children, it would be a travesty for other children not to get the opportunity to participate."
To view some examples of the worksheets completed by the children during the pilot, click on the attachment on the left handside of the web page.
Learning with Lofty at Brownlow Fold Primary School...
I would like say a huge thank you to Mr Obertelli and Lofty for providing our children with such and enjoyable and engaging learning experience. The children thoroughly enjoyed the mixture of numeracy and sporting activities delivered during the programme.
All the numeracy sessions were very well planned and delivered with confidence. Mr Obertelli's professional and positive approach was greatly appreciated by myself, other members of staff and most importantly the children. I would highly reccommend the programme to other schools and look forward to welcoming Mr Obertelli, and of course Lofty, back to Brownlow Fold School in the future.
Niall Owens
Numeracy and PE coordinator
Brownlow Fold Primary School
If you would be interested in funding or sponsoring the Learning With Lofty programme, please email Steve Obertelli sobertelli@bwct.org.uk.