A is for Arsenal. B is for Bergkamp. C is for Campbell. Learning to read when you’ve got names like Thierry Henry and Giovanni Van Bronckhorst to tackle brings a whole new dimension to literacy - as the hundreds of children who attend Arsenal’s literacy and football classes are finding out.

Arsenal football club, for whom Henry and Van Bronckhorst play, is riding high. Last season, for the second time in five years, the Gunners won the coveted double of Premiership and FA Cup. To celebrate its triumphs and give something back to the community, Arsenal has set up the Double Club, an outreach programme for schools using specially devised literacy materials and teenage volunteers. Numeracy resources will be added in January.

This is in addition to its involvement with the national programme Playing for Success, which involves 60 First Division and Premiership clubs (including Arsenal) and which brings children to football grounds for extra lessons in on-site classrooms equipped with computers (see box). It was the team’s previous double-winning season in 1997-98 that inspired Alan Sefton, head of Arsenal in the Community, to set up the Double Club, with funding from the Government’s New Opportunities Fund.

“I’ve always passionately believed football can have an influence on educating children,” says Mr Sefton. “We can make them more interested in learning through the game. So we go into schools and, knowing how overburdened teachers are, we provide them with a structured programme of ‘gameified’ materials to make it fun, and we provide volunteers who children are comfortable with.”

All the reading and writing is related to football and its star players, drawing on the uncanny capacity some children have for absorbing football facts. How on earth do seven-year-olds remember the exact minute in which Ray Parlour scored against Chelsea in this year’s FACup final? But they do, and being able to apply that knowledge in a learning situation gives them a surge of confidence.

The programme is delivered by teenage, football-loving volunteers. They work alongside Double Club co-ordinator Scott Cohen, a former PE and maths teacher, or teachers from the participating schools, who get training from Mr Cohen and his team. The children do 45 minutes of literacy work then 45 minutes of football to keep them sweet, give them exercise, and to teach them skills.

The volunteers, recruited mainly from sixth-form colleges, are selected for their suitability as role models. The 12-hour training course they attend is designed to equip them with basic tutoring skills including behaviour management and shared reading techniques and give them knowledge on child protection issues. They also learn football coaching skills.

Volunteers who have done particularly well at the football element of the course have gone on to study for the Junior Team Managers award at nearby City and Islington College; Junior Team graduates can be employed as paid football coaches. Mr Cohen is trying to break the trend for girls to take the literacy course while boys opt for football.

The Double Club comprises a 24-week programme of lessons based on materials produced by Arsenal, featuring photographs of the players. The programme can be used in curriculum time or after school. The Islington Arts and Media School is running it in school time, training Year 10 volunteers to work with a group of Year 7 children with special needs. In another version of the scheme, a group of disaffected girls from Highbury Grove school go to Arsenal’s Highbury stadium to work with a learning mentor.

While all materials are geared to key stage 2, they are increasingly being used with Year 7 special needs groups. “There is scope to stretch the materials and I’m adding extensions to take it further,” says Scott Cohen.

Many primary schools - from as far afield as Kent - run the scheme as a weekly after-school session, with volunteers working alongside the class teacher or learning mentor. At Smallwood primary in the London borough of Wandsworth, 20 Year 3 and 4 pupils attend a weekly club. “Most of these kids are here for the football,” says teacher Kevin Trueman. “It lures them into doing literacy after school and it’s pretty impressive that they’re able to apply their brains after a long school day. They really respond to the glossy materials; they’re not used to these kinds of resources. And if any of the children look a bit lost with the written exercises, the volunteers pick them up and get them back on track quickly.”

The six young men who come to Smallwood primary, all recruited from the local Ernest Bevin College, have been involved in the Double Club for two years. Balla Kamanda, aged 19, says: “Because I worship Arsenal and enjoy working with children, everything has gelled in this volunteering. The kids’ enthusiasm for football encourages them to learn and gives me confidence in what I’m doing. It’s also given me a good reference for my university application.”

Scott Fletcher, 18, received an award last year from Wandsworth council for voluntary services to the community through the Double Club. “At first you wonder why you’re doing it; it’s a big commitment,” he says. “But then, as you go along, you see the children improve and you know you’re helping them.”

Of course, they are helping Arsenal, too, by creating fans of the future. But, for Alan Sefton, “if the glamour and charisma of football in general, and Arsenal in particular, encourage children to learn, then we’re doing well”.

While there has been no independent evaluation of the project, anecdotal evidence from teachers and test results of children who have participated in Double Clubs show that participating children have improved their confidence and attainment in literacy and have outperformed comparative groups not involved in the scheme. Alan Sefton says: “We’ve gone into this because there are so many kids disaffected from their learning, and football is such a good way of motivating them.”

For further information on the Double Club, tel Scott Cohen on 020 7704 4217

PLAYING FOR SUCCESS

Playing for Success is part of the Government’s pound;200 million study support strategy. The aim is to establish out-of-school study support centres at football clubs and other sports facilities where children go to improve literacy, numeracy and ICT skills. Each centre is funded jointly by the Department for Education and Skills, the football club and the local authority. Sixty Premiership and First Division clubs, including Arsenal, are currently hosting these centres, usually running sessions after school or on Saturdays.

Arsenal’s Double Club differs from Playing for Success in that it is an outreach programme, going into schools with special materials and trained teenage volunteers.

GIVING BACK: THE OTHER SIDE OF FOOTBALL

* Arsenal runs a project every summer that brings together Muslim and Jewish primary children to play football in mixed teams, coached by trained secondary school pupils from the two communities. Originally an initiative of the Maimonides Foundation, a charity that promotes cross-community understanding, the scheme has become a model for the Respect project, launched by Prince Charles as part of this year’s golden jubilee celebrations.

* For the past two years, Arsenal has been running a similar week-long project in northern Israel, bringing together Israeli Jewish and Arab primary school children to play football together in mixed teams. Alan Sefton trains 32 secondary-aged volunteers, half-Jewish, half-Bedouin Arab, to be football coaches in a project that runs throughout the year.

* Since 1998, Arsenal has been taking a small team of coaches to train volunteer coaches (aged 16 to 67) to work with children in Soweto and other townships in South Africa. Riaan Kelley, 19, was the first gap-year student to go to Soweto as a volunteer coach with Arsenal last year. Staying with a local family in the Diepkloof district of Soweto, he worked alongside the Arsenal coaches for a week, then did the coaching on his own for another month. “I’d definitely go again,” he says. ” When the others left, I was the expert, and me and Zak, the head of Soweto’s football association, ran three after-school sessions a day with different age groups.”