Arsenal Double Club
Arsenal Double Club
RECENT EVENTS:
- Community: Scott Cohen on the Double Club
- Business Studies students hold Q&A
- Arsenal Double Club Language Days
- Double Club gets cooking at London Colney
- Double Club captures excitement of Euro 2008
* Download the Double Club Brochure*
The Arsenal Double Club is an innovative education and football programme which offers a range of subjects, together with football coaching. In 2005, the Double Club was awarded the "Big Tick" from Business in the Community.
Arsenal Double Clubs run in schools as after school clubs and during lesson time. They are also being used in weekend clubs, in holiday programmes, in prisons and as part of alternative education schemes. The prestige of Arsenal Football Club and the popularity of playing football is the inspiration behind the Arsenal Double Club. The aim is to raise the confidence and ability levels in various school and education subjects, through teaching resources about Arsenal and football. These sessions are combined with a parallel programme of football coaching. The Arsenal Double Club has modules in literacy, numeracy, Science, French, Spanish and German, ICT, Geography, Cookery and Healthy Living, History, Business Studies, Architecture, Citizenship. Most of the modules are aimed at underachieving pupils at Key Stages 2 and 3 but are easily adaptable to suit other needs. The Double Club currently runs in approximately 40 schools in literacy and numeracy and a further 30 in other modules.
Resources
All Double Club resources are well produced and are developed in partnership with schools and education consultants. They link in with the National Curriculum and attempt to tackle school subjects in a fun way using football related topics. The German module for example, was developed with the Goethe Institute and the Voyage-The UK-German Connection and uses an interview with Jens Lehmann and the World Cup in Germany as the focus for the module.
Staff
The classroom sessions are led by teachers or mentors from schools, depending upon location, Arsenal may be able to supply football coaches; alternatively FA Level One coaches can be used.
Volunteers
Older pupils and local students assist in the running of Double Clubs. Sixth formers (and in some cases Year Tens and Elevens) go into local primary schools or help out in Year Seven Double Clubs in their own school. The Double Club also works with Reach (London Metropolitan Volunteer Services) and UCL's Volunteer Services Union to attract volunteers to work in many of our local schools. These volunteers make a significant contribution to the success of the programme.
The Arsenal Double Club package
Aside from their lessons in school, all Double Clubs are encouraged to present their pupils with t-shirts and certificates at the end of the course. This often happens in a school assembly. All Double Clubs are also invited to spend a day towards the end of their course at Emirates Stadium, where the students get a tour and a visit to the interactive Arsenal museum. Some schools also get involved in Double Club tournaments.
DfES Secondary School Project
Since January 2004, Arsenal in the Community has placed full time teachers in secondary schools in London in a joint venture with the DfES and local education authorities. Selected groups of pupils receive a concentrated Double Club Key Stage 3 curriculum and the results of this intensive football based programme have been very positive. As a result, in 2006-07, the DfES has asked the Arsenal Double Club to work with other clubs to establish Double Clubs in their local schools. Clubs involved, through their Playing For Success Study Support Centres, are Ipswich, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Northampton, Oldham, Portsmouth, WBA, Fulham, Southend, Bolton, Watford, Ipswich, Blackburn, Norwich, Northampton Saints Rugby Club, Leicester Tigers Rugby Club, Hunslet Hawks Rugby League Club, Northants County Cricket Club and Surrey County Cricket Club.
Other Developments
On the back of the success of the DfES Pilot in secondary schools in Islington and Tower Hamlets, a full time Arsenal Science Teacher has been working in Tower Hamlets schools since September 2005. This joint project with Tower Hamlets education authority has now spread to include science teaching and football coaching in primary schools in the borough.
The Arsenal Double Club has also had twice weekly sessions in Pentonville Prison since May 2005. The learners have been writing match reports and reading and debating topical football issues in the classroom, before taking a basic course in football coaching.
Languages
Throughout June and July, the Double Club will be holding a number of ‘Language Days’ for the students from our very successful French, Spanish and German Languages Double Club programmes.
The students will take part in a mini-tournament against other double clubs from different schools. The games will also be refereed in the respective languages! The tournament is followed by a trip to Emirates Stadium where they will get a chance to play some fun language games and quizzes, visit the Arsenal museum and finally get a guided tour around the stadium along with a presentation of certificates, Double Club T-shirts and footballs donated by our partners from the European Comission. Arsenal has previously hosted 3 language days in the past 6 months and has seen 9 schools participate from both London and further afield.
Like all Double Club modules, the weekly after school sessions consisted of 45 minutes of football and 45 minutes of language teaching over the course of 6-8 weeks. The 45-minute classroom sessions use Arsenal or football-related resources and are followed up with a 45-minute football coaching session using the successful Arsenal Soccer School method. The language modules use interactive resources such as interviews with French, Spanish and German players on DVD to support the work.
Since developing the language modules, around 80 Secondary schools have delivered the scheme and around 1800 children have benefitted from this alternative method of language learning. The department continues to innovate and grow the programme to reach more young people: we have also recently developed a German Primary module for KS2 and are currently piloting a French Primary module which will be available at the start of the next academic year. A Spanish Primary module will be available to schools in January 2009. For more information on any of our Double Club language modules, please contact Samir Singh 0207 704 4158 ssingh@arsenal.co.uk.
For further information on the Arsenal Double Club, please contact :-
Scott Cohen
Arsenal Double Club Co-ordinator
Emirates Stadium
75 Drayton Park
London N5 1BU
Email: scohen@arsenal.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 704 4149
Contact re: DCSF, Science, Cookery and Healthy Living
Paul Thompson
Assistant Double Club Co-ordinator
Emirates Stadium
75 Drayton Park
London N5 1BU
Email: pthompson@arsenal.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 704 4152
Contact re: After-schools, Weekend and Holiday programmes, Geography
Samir Singh
Museum and Double Club Assistant
Emirates Stadium
75 Drayton Park
London N5 1BU
Email: ssingh@arsenal.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 704 4158
Contact re: Languages, History, Business Studies, Architecture, Citizenship
Ross McKinley
Double Club Assistant
Emirates Stadium
75 Drayton Park
London N5 1BU
Email: rmckinley@arsenal.co.uk
Telephone: 0207 704 4147
Contact re: After-schools, Volunteers
Double Club Fax: 0207 704 4151
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