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IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE...
Preston North End Community and Education Trust is transforming young lives across the city by helping pupils achieve their goals and be the best they can be
Preston North End Community and Education Trust (PNECET) is the official charity of Preston North End Football Club, aiming to connect people, inspire generations and help people to achieve their goals through its life-changing work, which positively impacted 16,955 individuals in Preston and the surrounding areas last year.
The Trust’s work is delivered across its three key strands:
• Community engagement
• Education
• Health and wellbeing
These three strands enrich the lives of those the Trust reaches out to across the city. The Trust offers high-quality provision across all of its programmes, with the core aims of creating safer, stronger and more resilient communities, providing an education pathway for all to achieve their goals and to tackle the health inequalities across Preston.
SOUTHLANDS HIGH SCHOOL
Preston North End Community and Education Trust has appointed a Secondary Education Youth Mentor, who will spend four days a week working in Southlands High School in Chorley, as part of a new and innovative secondary school education partnership between the two organisations. The newly appointed youth mentor, Cameron Molloy, began work with PNECET in time for the start of the new academic year and will positively impact the school’s pupils by delivering a wide variety of interventions.
Within the education department, Cameron will form part of the secondary education team, which looks to support children who may struggle in the traditional school environment, or those who are displaying low confidence, self-esteem or educational attainment.
The programme is now entering its fourth academic year and has seen exponential growth during that time – with 40 students enrolled on the programme during the 2019/20 period, compared to 136 now enrolled for the 2022/23 period from across 14 secondary schools.
The partnership with Southlands has resulted from positive consultation with the school, in which a need for PNECET’s bespoke education provision – which supports learners from all backgrounds to pursue their educational goals – was identified. Secondary School Curriculum Lead, Jake Blackburn, said: “We are pleased to have begun working in partnership with Southlands High School in Chorley to positively impact the school’s pupils through a variety of educational interventions. “Our secondary school programme is inclusive of learners from all backgrounds and education settings, with the programme supporting those from both pupil referral units and mainstream providers, with delivery within schools as well as on-site at Deepdale and across our facilities in Preston.
“By significantly growing our secondary school education programme for the 2022/23 academic year and agreeing our first in-school partnership with Southlands High School to place a staff member on-site, we are confident of continuing to deliver on our strategic aim of providing an education pathway for all.”
Southlands High School Headteacher, Paul Bousfield, added: “The presence of someone who is as skilled as Cameron in working with young people I think is really key because he can develop a positive relationship with our young people. Through that, he can support them and motivate them to excel and achieve their best.
“The fact that he wears the Preston North End badge and that’s attached to everything that he does, there’s a deep history of excellence around what the club has achieved over the years, and we can sell that as a brand to the students – hard work and the ethics of trying to be the best you can be.
“There is something exciting about sport and especially football. PNE are our biggest and most successful local team and I think that really helps young people buy into this concept of pursuing excellence.
“As a school, we want to extend our pastoral team and bring a youth work angle, which Cameron brings.
“There’s a great history and tradition going back over 50 years of the school here at Southlands. We’re proud of that but aspiring to be better which aligns with the ethos and ambition of the club.”
FRENCHWOOD PRIMARY SCHOOL
Ryan Ledson and Emil Riis made a special visit to Frenchwood Primary School recently to join a PE class of Year 6 pupils! Children at Frenchwood receive visits from Preston North End Community and Education Trust every week, as part of the Premier League Primary Stars programme.
Primary Stars engages children through cross-curricular learning in PE lessons and the power and appeal of Preston North End Football Club and sport more widely.
It was no ordinary visit for the pupils in this instance, though, as Ledson and Riis got involved in their gymnastics lesson.
The pair joined the class for a short spell of exercises and stretching, before settling into a question and answer session, to provide pupils with an insight into their journeys to becoming professional footballers and their lives as players at Preston North End.
It proved to be a mutually beneficial visit for both players and pupils – this the first made by members of the first team squad to one of the Trust’s partner primary schools in the 2022/23 academic year.
Following the visit, midfielder Ledson said: “It’s great to come and see the kids, it’s the least we can do. We went through a little gymnastics’ session and some stretching, it was good fun.
“The kids are made up that we’ve come out, it’s a great day for everyone. You see how excited the pupils are, they’ll be going home speaking about it. We all love doing it and coming out to see the kids as they come down on a Saturday to support us at Deepdale.”
PNECET works with over 20 partner primary schools in Preston and the surrounding areas every week to engage children through the power of sport and helping teachers to upskill their delivery of teaching PE. •
For more information about the Trust’s secondary school provision, please email: jakeblackburn@pne.com
For more information about the PNECETprogramme, please email: olivia.parkinson@pne.com
