THE PREMIER League and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are partnering to use their reach and appeal to encourage primary school children across England and Wales to celebrate diversity.

The sporting organisations, united by a shared goal to encourage inclusion and inspire people to respect and value individual differences, have come together to create ‘Roar! for Diversity’ a curriculum-linked PSHE resource and competition for 7-11-year olds.

Available to download for free from the Premier League Primary Stars website and ECB’s partner, Chance to Shine, the Key Stage 2 resource will enable teachers to discuss with their class how diversity within a team helps to make it stronger. Pupils can then create an advert celebrating diversity which can be entered into a competition and can win match tickets or a school visit from the Premier League or Cricket World Cup trophies.

The Roar! For Diversity pack includes lesson plans and video resources featuring contributions from England cricketers Adil Rashid, Sophia Dunkley and Premier League match official Sian Massey-Ellis.

To mark the launch of resource and competition, Liverpool FC footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain joined Eoin Morgan, Sophia Dunkley, Sian Massey-Ellis and Chris Edwards to surprise children at Lawrence Community Primary School in Wavertree, Liverpool, to take part in a classroom discussion about the importance of diversity in sport.

The sports stars answered questions from class 5M and joined the children in groups to complete worksheet exercises ahead of creating their Roar! for Diversity adverts.

Oxlade-Chamberlain said: “The most successful teams bring together players with individual skills and qualities to be able to achieve success as a group. The Liverpool dressing room is home to players from more than 20 countries. Everyone brings something different to the atmosphere on and off the pitch!”

“The Premier League is for everyone. Using sport to inspire a generation of young fans to celebrate diversity is something I’m proud to be supporting.”

Bill Bush, Executive Director of the Premier League, said: “The Roar! for Diversity resource will enable primary school children to openly discuss and celebrate the qualities that make them different to their classmates; using the appeal of both football and cricket to encourage these conversations both in the classroom and away from it.

“This launch follows on from our successful primary school poetry competition on diversity last year and supports the wider work that the Premier League and our clubs are carrying out around anti-discrimination.

“We hope that the 16,000+ schools engaged with our free Premier League Primary Stars education programme will find these downloadable curriculum-linked resources helpful in prompting meaningful discussion.”