UEFA Women’s Euro Trophy comes to Vandyke

Vandyke Upper School was honoured to host the UEFA Women’s Euro Trophy in conjunction with the Leighton Linslade School Sports Partnership (LLSSP), in recognition of the Partnership’s success in offering girls equal opportunities to participate in football. Various schools from the locality who have benefitted from the partnership were invited to attend across the day, including Linslade Lower, Rushmere Park, Beaudesert Lower, Brooklands Middle and Gilbert Inglefield schools.

The LLSSP has been working in conjunction with Barclays, The FA and Youth Sport Trust on the Barclays Girls’ Football School Partnership programme since its inception in 2019. The programme aims to provide girls with equal access to football in schools. As a school, Vandyke was recently recognised for its contribution to girls football when a case study was printed in HM Government’s School Sport Plan where the school is recognised as a leading light in the movement towards equal access to football for girls.

The LLSSP were tasked with achieving two main objectives before the end of the 2023/24 academic year: 75% of schools offering girls equal access to football in PE lessons, and 90% of schools offering girls equal opportunities to participate regularly in extra-curricular football.

Not only have these goals been achieved, but the LLSSP is one of only a small number of Partnerships in the country to achieve 100% engagement across all schools (20 Lower, 5 Middle, 2 Upper, and 1 Special). These goals have been achieved through delivering programmes in schools such as Disney-inspired Shooting Stars and Barclays Game On-GO Play.

As a result of this outstanding achievement, the LLSSP has been recognised by Barclays, The FA and Youth Sport Trust as a ‘High Achiever’, resulting in the visit from the UEFA Women’s Euro Trophy and a nomination for a #LetGirlsPlay Strategic Lead Award.

The day of the Trophy’s visit was rounded off with a celebratory girls’ football event on Vandyke’s 3G pitch, delivered by Vandyke’s Girls Football Activators. Pupils from Brooklands and Gilbert Inglefield Academy took part in the event, which was filmed by the FA as part of LLSSP’s nomination video for their #LetGirlsPlay Strategic Lead Award nomination.

James Grant, Assistant School Games Organiser for the LLSSP, said, “It’s been a great honour for our work to be recognised and rewarded on a National level. We have worked hard over the past 5 years in the Leighton-Linslade area to ensure girls receive equal access to football in our schools.

Over this period of time, we have successfully reached our goals for supporting schools to offer girls equal access to football in PE lessons and in extra-curricular clubs. Our vision and commitment to providing equal access remains the same over the coming years. We hope the visiting UEFA Women’s Euro Trophy provides further inspiration and opportunities for girls to play football in our local area.”

Lee Turney, Team Leader of PE at Vandyke, added, “We are fortunate to work so closely with LLSSP. Girl’s football has grown immeasurably. My PE staff and I are extremely supportive of this movement of aiming to provide as many opportunities for all as possible. We have extended our football growth recently as we welcomed Linslade Galaxy Girls FC to our grass pitch facilities. The girls game seems to be going from strength to strength and as a school we are rightly proud to be a part of this.’’