Villa Community Champion leads partnership with local schools

Villa Community Champion leads partnership with local schools

The Aston Villa Foundation announced an innovative new partnership with the Prince Albert Community Trust (PACT) that will transform the delivery of physical activity in a number of Birmingham schools.

The Foundation will be employing a Villa Community Champion in collaboration with PACT whose role will be to deliver Aston Villa Foundation programmes in their schools. The full-time role, which will be based in the schools themselves, will help to ensure that the club have a presence at the heart of education in the city, putting the Foundation in the best possible position to impact positive change on students. Manager of Foundation and Community Partnerships, Andy Taylor, believes the link with PACT will aid the Foundation’s attempts to have a greater impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of school children in the local community.

Taylor said: “We are delighted to build on our existing primary school programmes with this new model, which allows greater focused engagement. We will be working very closely with the schools to measure the positive impact of the engagement over the course of the year. This representation within the schools also allows exit routes through our wider family interventions such as holiday activity, employability and health-based projects as we work to develop a family approach, starting in the schools.”

Collaboration of staff, pupils and their families

The Villa Community Champion will aim to deliver projects and interventions that help raise attendance, empower pupils, improve students’ health and wellbeing and increase inclusive activities, among other objectives, in PACT schools. PACT is responsible for four primary schools in Birmingham – Heathfield Primary School, Highfield J&I School, Birchfield Community School and Prince Albert Primary School – and CEO Sajid Gulzar is excited about the opportunities the partnership presents.

Gulzar said: “As an AVFC Hub school we will adopt a collaborative delivery approach to ensure that our staff, pupils and their families benefit from skilled expertise and additional resources. The aim is to enable our pupils to excel both in and outside of the classroom. We are extremely excited about the partnership and how it can serve our communities. We hope that the collaboration will benefit our children across PACT for many years to come.”