Children from the Community Trust’s partner schools recently took part in the Trust’s first SEND Festival at Staveley Miners Welfare FC.
Activities on the day included football skills, arts and crafts, drama and more.
Teacher Fern Onion expressed her delight with the session put on by the Trust, saying: “It’s been incredible. We’ve had the children saying they were really nervous, but they’ve come along and now they’re saying, ‘When can we come again?’ We need more of it. It’s incredible.
“We were invited to bring up to 15 children and we’ve been doing some lovely bits and bobs. We thought it was all football-related, but the children have done crafts, drama, boccia and lots of different events as well as football.”
Craig Dawson, who runs the Trust’s Pan Disability sessions, spoke about the benefit of these sessions. He said: “It’s just really promoting what we do, and getting them down to us, and making everyone at school aware.
“It’s very important, because I’ve found that going into schools, often kids with disabilities tend to shy away from physical education or sports.
“What we’re doing is actually saying, ‘We open our arms to you guys and we want you to be a part of what we do here’.”