Football mentoring can boost wellbeing of troubled pupils’

Intensive mentoring for troubled schoolchildren using football kickabouts can significantly increase wellbeing and deliver happiness boosts equivalent to an unemployed adult getting a job, a study has found.

- Robert Booth

A project involving more than 2,000 pupils in dozens of secondary schools in Greater Manchester showed that instead of wellbeing declining among pupils at risk of exclusion who had behavioural issues and special educational needs, their happiness scores increased.

The charity behind the approach, Football Beyond Borders (FBB), sends mentors, or coaches, into schools to act as trusted adults for at-risk children. As part of the coaches' work they use aspects of football games - such as dealing with anger at being fouled or the pressure of taking a penalty to teach children how to cope and build better relationships.

The impact has caught the attention of Gus O'Donnell, the former head of the civil service, who is lobbying Keir Starmer to measure all policy choices by their impact on wellbeing if Labour forms the next government.