Goal to find rising stars in Calne (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Goal to find rising stars in Calne

2:00pm Friday 13th January 2012 in Calne By Tom Mooney

Springfields Academy has joined forces with Swindon Town Football Club to launch a pilot scheme aimed at encouraging gifted footballers.

The Calne school already has a connection with Town through training courses held on their grounds over the past 18 months.

Now they are linking up to provide local children who are classed as gifted and talented with one-to-one coaching.

Springfields headteacher Trystan Williams said: “We have been working in partnership with Swindon Town’s centre of excellence for a while now, developing the children involved in the Gifted and Talented programme.

“Then the club came up with the innovative idea of taking the children from Chippenham and Calne who are training with the Swindon academy and give them one-to-one coaching.

“We have specialist tuition for children to help with their maths and literacy and other academic things but it doesn’t happen enough in sport.

“These children are deemed the most talented and this will only help their learning and progress.”

Sean Wood, one of Swindon’s centre of excellence coaches, will be attending regular sessions with the youngsters where they hope to uncover the next generation of stars.

Mr Williams said the initiative is a further example of the different ways the school is helping children from all backgrounds and he hopes it will be an example to centres around the country.

He said: “If we had given more children this opportunity in the past, perhaps there would be a higher percentage of English players in the Premier League now.

“In other countries the most talented children get individual sesssions every week, but we don’t do that here. So I hope if it works it may be something which others around the country can look at and take on.

“If some of them go on to be stars of the future, I would be very proud that we played a part in helping them get there.”

Picture caption: Trystan Williams, head teacher of Springfields Academy with wife Rhian, Carolyn Maddox, headteacher of Fynamore Primary School, Calne, which is also involved in the scheme for gifted and talented players, Dave Summerfield, Hannah and Mike Soonsupt, with Henri, Keelan, Swindon development coach Sean Wood, Ruben and Jude.