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Day Two: Football around the world (Is the world a fair place?)

Morning session: Football around the world
Key focus
How is football played around the world – both formally and informally? Pupils challenge stereotypes by looking at photos and asking questions.

Afternoon session: A fair competition?
Key focus
Why do some countries usually do better in the World Cup than others? Is life for people in different countries around the world fair?

> Background information for teachers

Morning   Afternoon

Four activities: Two activities: > We play football (30 mins) (129KB pdf) Pupils compare two photos of children playing football, one taken in Kenya and one in the UK. They discuss them, then learn about life in a shanty town in the suburbs of Nairobi. > Download football photos (192KB pdf) > Country trumps (1 hour) (112KB pdf) A version of the popular game, played with statistics from countries participating in the World Cup finals. > Download trump cards (153KB Word doc) > A game of empowerment (45 mins) (123KB pdf) Do competitive games help poor people with the problems they face? Case studies from Kenya and Zambia help pupils think about this. > Download football photos (192KB pdf) > Country research (part 2) (1 hour) (66KB pdf) Continued project work about countries participating in the World Cup. > Introducing goals (45 mins) (228KB pdf) Learning about the UN Millennium Development goals.   > The Millennium Development Goals (30 mins) (230KB pdf) Pupils think about and discuss the MDGs.   Download a pdf of all morning activities with worksheets and information (583KB pdf)   Download a pdf of all afternoon activities with worksheets and information (134KB pdf)

Background information for teachers

Morning
'Football is the universal language of scores of millions of people around the world, including countless children and teenagers. Young people play in narrow, urban alleyways. They play in refugee camps. They play in abandoned swimming pools. In car parks, war zones, on street corners -- wherever there are young people, it seems there is football.'
(Source: Unicef)

Football is played all over the world, in a wide variety of places and settings. However, the passion for the game is a shared one. Everyone enjoys it when their team scores a goal, and feels let down when their team lets a goal in. The competitive element to the game provides enjoyment for players and spectators alike. In addition, football is a very inclusive sport because the game can be played without expensive facilities.

In today’s activities, pupils will first of all compare and contrast photographs of children playing football in the UK and Kenya. The positive elements of a competitive game like football will be drawn out. Those pupils who play football (or other team games) will think about the reasons for their own enjoyment and share these with others. Pupils will also consider how playing in organised competitions (for example, football leagues) has a positive effect on the lives of children living in extreme poverty in Nairobi, Kenya and in Lusaka, Zambia.

Pupils will also consider how, although the World Cup is organised as a fair competition, it is considerably harder for some countries to reach the final 32 than others. Rich countries predominate because their governments have more money to invest in sport. Pupils will go on to discover how life in different countries (including some playing in this year’s World Cup final) is far from fair. Studying the Millennium Development Goals will enable pupils to see that the experience of many people in poorer countries is very different from our own, and that the competition of life is far from fair.

Before using this material, you may find it useful to refer to the CPD pages on Cool Planet for Teachers about using images.

Afternoon
The activities for this afternoon enable pupils to continue to consider how conditions can be very different for many people living in countries playing in the World Cup finals. Firstly, they will play a simple card game in which they will discover, for example, that in Japan the average life expectancy is 82.0 years, while in Angola it is only 40.8 years. In the second half of the afternoon, pupils will have a further opportunity for country research, following on from Day One.

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