The Premier League Inspires Challenge is a national competition, with 31 Premier League Inspires clubs taking part in this year’s challenge. Each club held heats for all of their participants to pitch their social action project ideas to carry out in their local community – with each club’s winners chosen to go forward, and represent their football club at the national event.

Social action is defined as any activity carried out to make a difference. The brief received from the Premier League was for our participants to create a social action project to promote positive mental health and help remove the stigma associated with it.

Year 7 students Mitchell, Theo, Mattyos, Euan and Nicolas were chosen to represent the Foundation because of their innovative idea for their project.

The five Fulham Boys School pupils recognised that the Covid-19 pandemic had hit young people hard and increased the risk the risk of social isolation when being in lockdown and having to stay at home. They believed that this has ultimately led to increased screen time, which if used in the wrong way can affect eye health and increase tiredness, reduce the amount of time spend with family and friends, and depending on what you are viewing on screens, affect mental health.

Within their school community, the pupils spread awareness of the negative impact too much screen time can have through putting up posters and holding drop-in sessions for their peers to attend. They also set up games at lunchtimes to allow their friends to take part in physical activity, rather than spending time on phones and not socially interacting.

At the Premier League Inspires Challenge celebration event, the pupils presented their project and put together a video summary of what had achieved before they were presented with Chelsea and Premier League goody bags as prizes for their outstanding achievements.

They also received messages of support from Chelsea Academy players Charlie Webster, Dion Rankine, Ethan Wady and Harvey Vale.

Sam Mardle, Chelsea Foundation school education manager, said: ‘The boys should be really proud of their achievements.

‘We are all aware of the difficult times that everyone has had to experience in the past 18 months due to the pandemic, and I am really impressed with how the boys carried out the project from start to finish themselves – from the birth of their idea, right through to implementation and evaluation. I want to thank the school and our Chelsea Champion, Jonathan Reid, for all of their help in allowing them to complete the project so successfully.’

Our Premier League Inspires programme runs throughout the academic year, aimed at children and young people aged between 11 and 25, designed to inspire and engage participants whilst developing key skills to allow them to reach their potential.

If your school would like more information, please email [email protected]