Coventry City

Throughout October the Premier League and EFL run their “No Room for Racism” & “Together against Racism” campaigns to help to try and stop racism in football and wider society.

Over the last few weeks our SBitC schools' coaches, with support from West Midlands Police, have been out spreading the messages from these campaigns in various primary schools across the city, delivering Anti-Racism workshops to their KS2 pupils as part of our Premier League Primary Stars programme. 

The aims of these workshops are to educate the pupils about racism and the negative effects it has both in football and wider society. As well as educating, the workshops provide pupils with safe ways to seek help if they ever find themselves victims of racism and teach pupils how to come together to try and put a stop to racism and change people's views and beliefs. Each workshop is then finished with the pupils designing a “No Room for Racism” poster, to be displayed around their school and community to help to continue to spread the message. 

On top of the support from West Midlands Police, we were also supported by the club who sent a number of CCFC players to attend these workshops to talk about their experiences and help the pupils with the creation of their posters.

Nicola Rynott, Headteacher of St Osburgs Catholic Primary School, commented on the workshop and player visit: 

“The children in Years 5 and 6 very much enjoyed the anti-racism presentation and got lots out of it. It helped them to understand that racism is not acceptable and that no-one should have to put up with it. In sport and everyday life, we should treat each other with kindness, fairness and respect, no matter what our differences may be.

"The officer supporting the event from West Midlands police also encouraged the children to report any racism that they might see or experience. It was also wonderful and inspirational for our pupils to have some of their favourite Sky Blues players visiting the school to reinforce this message and to encourage them to design some great ‘No Room For Racism’ posters.” 

Nicola added: “Thank you very much to Coventry City FC and West Midlands Police for their support with these workshops and keep an eye out before the game for some of the pupils from the workshops who will be pitch side with their posters!” 

If you are interested in our Anti-Racism workshops, or want to find out more about our school provision and programmes, please email our Primary Schools Coordinator, Adam Spence, on adam.spence@sbitc.org.uk or call our Coventry Building Society Arena office on 02476 786 349.