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Premier Skills

“Premier Skills is a partnership between the British Council and the Premier League which uses football as a tool to engage with and develop the skills of young people.

The programme concentrates on three areas:
• Face-to-face training for coaches and referees, using highly skilled coaches and referee trainers from the Premier League and its clubs. The participants are then supported in developing their own community-focused football projects
• Linking community projects run by Premier League clubs to similar projects in other countries, building long-term partnerships that aim to change the lives of thousands of people
• The creation of English language products for teachers and learners, including face-to-face training for teachers, school resources and digital content via a dedicated website.

Premier Skills has already achieved huge impact under the first stage of the programme, with 1,000 coaches trained, nearly 300,000 young people reached, and over one million football-focused English language materials distributed globally.

Since the second phase of Premier Skills, combined football courses and refereeing courses have run in Botswana, Cameroon, Senegal and Uganda. Alongside the coaching, a considerable number of policymakers have been engaged in each country, helping to both embed and expand the impact of the programme.

Harnessing the huge global interest in the Premier League, the British Council has created a range of football-based materials that include a dedicated Premier Skills website www.britishcouncil.org/premierskills. This website features downloadable resources for teachers and learners, and the first components of a Premier Skills self-access schools pack, providing materials for teachers and learners of English. These will enable people around the world to develop and build upon their English language skills”

QPR in the Community Trust & Premier Skills

Since Queens Park Rangers promotion to the Premier League we have supported 3 Premier Skills projects.  In October 2011 Danny Edwards worked in Vietnam, followed by Martino Chevannes travelling to Kenya and finally Stephen McCarthy supported a project in Khartoom in Sudan.

The Phase 2 training programme aimed to help the Premier Skills coaches to develop their skills and knowledge around three main strands:

1/ Best practice in grass roots football and inclusive community development through football.
2/ Community programme design, implementation, management and evaluation or event planning, implementation and evaluation.
3/ Motivating and supporting volunteers engaged in the delivery of the programme.

Martino Chevannes said “ it was a privilege to be part of the team of Premier League coaches delivering the first Phase 2 course in Kenya, not only was it a great experience but also a very rewarding and fulfilling one.

The course allowed me to pass on my knowledge and experience to others, and to also provide them with the necessary tools to enable them to go back to their own communities with the confidence and skills to help tackle key issues and make a lasting difference to the lives of the young people that they work with within them.”