Global demand for teachers' World Cup school pack

Two teachers from Hayes, west London, and Berkshire, have created an educational World Cup football activity pack which has proved so popular online it will be used in schools across London.

Ravi Khalsa, from Hayes Park School, and Michael Donaghy, at St Paul's CofE Junior School in Wokingham, came together to create the worksheets for primary aged children when they felt there was a lack of World Cup themed resources available.

The Mayor of London's Healthy schools programme will now be distributing the packs to more than 2,000 schools for free.

The FIFA World Cup is being jointly hosted by Mexico, Canada and the United States, and will run from 11 June to 19 July.

Khalsa and Donaghy designed their pack to allow teacher to use the global event as a learning opportunity for children.

Khalsa said: "Initially the idea was to just make a couple of worksheets for mine and Michael's classes in our respective schools.

"Then, since we put them online we've heard of community groups sharing the pack on Facebook groups on WhatsApp groups, and teachers all over the world."

The 2026 World Cup tournament is the largest ever, with 48 countries competing.

The packs teach the children about the different countries and cultures of people taking part in the competition, and integrates a wide range of subjects from maths and English to art.

Donaghy, who produced the illustrations for the books, said drawing was a favourite hobby anyway, and said he was shocked at how far the pack had travelled.

"I'm just sitting in my classroom or in my house in my free time doing these drawings on my iPad and then suddenly kids on the other side of the world and teachers from all over are really enjoying the resource," he said.

So far, the activity pack has had more than 5,000 downloads across the world.

Rebecca Broadhurst, head teacher of Hayes Park School, said: "This pack really brings the World Cup and all those countries to our pupils and it's getting them really excited about learning more about those different countries and getting excited and invested in the different teams.

"We can all join up as a school and all treat each other equally, and we can learn more about each other's cultures, so we understand more about each other."

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