Football Beyond Borders Launches Beyond Lockdown Campaign

Football Beyond Borders (FBB) has launched a major new national campaign to highlight why children missing school is an issue of national interest.

In 2020 Beyond Lockdown, the charity – winner of the Tessa Jowell Social and Environmental Impact Award in association with Aberdeen Standard Investments at the Sport Industry Awards 2020 – highlights the disastrous impact of school exclusions.

According to the charity 830,000 days of school were missed due to children being excluded in 2019, while there has been a 60 % increase in the number of pupils permanently excluded from England’s schools in the past five years. FBB’s campaign also highlights that every cohort of permanently excluded students will go on to cost the state an extra £2.1 billion in education, health, benefits and criminal justice costs, while only 1% of excluded pupils get five good GCSEs needed to access the workforce. 

“In many parts of the country, the system that should be supporting our school children is letting them down,” said Jack Reynolds, Co-Director, Football Beyond Borders.

“This year, for the first time, every family experienced the challenge of children not being in school. Now we all know what it means when our children lose their education. We must use this awareness as an opportunity to ensure we do everything we can to ensure that young people remain in school and do not become socially isolated at this critical stage in their lives.”

In the first phase of the campaign, FBB has launched a new book, also entitled Beyond Lockdown, which provides a photographic record of Britain’s school children throughout the lockdown period. The work highlights that the impact of school goes beyond education, and that it creates a sense of social connection, too.

The second stage of the campaign – No More Empty Chairs – will begin after the half-term break in November, with release of a dedicated film as well as first hand testimonies from pupils, parents and headteachers. 

The film aims to be a visual demonstration of why the charity believes it is important to use the experience of lockdown to minimise school exclusions in future.