Fleetwood Town launch Community Sports College

Fleetwood Town Community Trust is pleased to announce the launch of their brand-new Community Sports College.

The Community Sports College will be based at Fleetwood Town’s elite training complex, Poolfoot Farm in Thornton, and will deliver a BTEC Level 3 Diploma in Sport.

Over the past four years, over 60 students have been on the course, with the new Community Sports College building on the success of previous years, whilst providing a pathway of education delivered by the Community Trust.

The Community Trust is looking to provide a pathway; offering traineeships in employability, Level 2 and 3 BTEC awards in Sport to school leavers, followed by foundation degree’s in relevant sporting areas such as sports business and sports coaching.

The BTEC programme has grown year-on-year with the past year being the most successful yet, with the students crowned National Champions in Futsal, and winning the North West 11-a-side league.

More importantly though is the classroom success. Having 100% of students complete and pass the course, and 85% achieving on or way above their initial target grade, and 71% progressing onto universities such as Loughborough, Manchester, Edge Hill, and Lancaster.

The Community Sports College will allow us to build on this success and grow our education provision further. Expanding our offer to encompass a further and higher education pathway into the sport and leisure industry for local students in the Wyre and Fylde community.

This will offer unique opportunities for ambitious football fans to represent and learn at Fleetwood Town, gain unique work experience opportunities within the football club and to gain industry recognised coaching qualifications. Which will all help towards gaining university places, scholarships abroad and employment in the industry.

Matt Hilton, the Community Trust Chief Executive spoke about the launch and how it can help develop people, and also help students with their further education in sport. He said: “Colleges have traditionally placed academic learning at the core of the curriculum, supported by employability for the world of work.

“By comparison, Fleetwood Town Community Sports College will ensure academic learning is intrinsically linked to our distinctive experience, which places character development and employability at the core of what we do.

“We believe in delivering education that is so much more than qualifications.”

Fleetwood Town head coach Joey Barton added: “The work the Community Trust does is unbelievable and after hearing about the Community Sports College launch, I fully endorse their new programme.

“It was great to meet a couple of students and find out about the work that they’re getting up to, and I look forward to checking back in with the students later in the year.”