The UEFA European football competition kicks off on the 11th June and runs until 11th July with England, Wales and Scotland all taking part from the United Kingdom alongside another 21 countries from across Europe. There is sure to be a lot of interest in matches and a great opportunity to use Purple Mash to bring soccer into the classroom.

We have a range of resources in Purple Mash that schools can use over the month. For each of the six groups, there are template fact files that children can use to research the countries taking part, including attractions, languages spoken and previous soccer achievements. Within each folder alongside the fact files there is also a template that will help students write match reports about the teams. The match report template includes prompts for children to think about for example, who was the player of the match, the best and the worst moments, key points for each half and useful phrases to help the children structure their writing.

Children can use our player profile to write about one of the players taking part in the tournament and can complete research into their background. Or get the children to our female and male footballer mashcams to put themselves in the boots of the players and write down thoughts in the speech bubbles.

As well as projects linked directly to the Euros, we also have a range of creative resources that children can use. You can use our football shirt template or maybe the ALF shirt template, to get the children to design their own shirt for their team, the children could research how designs have changed over the years and design their own shirt maybe for another tournament. Children can also make their own football game within 2Code or try avoiding being tackled by the other players and collect as many footballs as they can in our 2DIY 3D football game, they can also use this template to edit the game and make their own. Using 2Create a Story, children can also edit this football story or could make their own.

Songs have been a big part of football and football tournaments throughout the years, Superstar DJ and producer Martin Garrix has been confirmed as the official UEFA EURO music artist and you can  see the official song below:

How about challenging your students to come up with their own song for the tournament, they could use Busy Beats to compose a track for their team or use 2Sequence to create a song reflecting their passion for the game. You could set up a blog or Display board within school to showcase all the work completed.

Within Serial Mash we also have a collection of football themed books in our 5-A-Side collection, perfect for reading throughout the month – choose from 5-a-side play off, mystery player, beach battle or deep in the forest. there are also a range of 5-A-Side.

It would also be a perfect time to read Striker Boy, it is a page-turning football thriller with plenty of action both on and off the pitch. Can 13-year old Nat Dixon save the club he loves from relegation, there are three ways to enjoy Strikey boy either by enjoying it in paperback (special not-for-profit edition published in aid of Mind), on a kindle or download it as an audio-book. As well as being a great story, Striker Boy is supported by a range of free resources. These include a literacy activity pack, an emotional resilience activity pack and an emotional resilience assembly PowerPoint.

If you do fancy using the #EURO2020 event or maybe just use the ideas explored here for an event closer to home, we would love you to share your work on either our Twitter or Facebook pages.