Later this year 20 students from Wellington High School will be heading overseas to show how they bend it like Beckham thanks to a partnership with the Real Madrid Foundation.
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The Real Madrid Foundation is a branch of the world-famous Real Madrid Football Club and over 12 days they will meet with students from other social sports schools from across the globe.
In 2015 Wellington High became the first school in Australia to accept a partnership with the foundation and is currently still the only school in the country to be involved in the program.
The school has just renewed its contract, meaning they will continue to be a part of the program for another two years and will have the opportunity to travel to Madrid every two years.
While in Spain, Wellington students will play two other social sports schools in friendly football games and will also have the chance to watch two training session of the Real Madrid team.
Students in Years 7 to 10 are involved in the program and Wellington High School coach-coordinator Brooke George said they train three hours per week.
Real Madrid Foundation trainer Antonio Vilar was running drills with the students and updating the local teachers training last week.
"It's much like a normal football training session," Ms George explained.
"All the skills and drills are relevant to the game, the difference being is they have an educational component. So we must introduce content form the curriculum and teach it through sports and activities.
Ms George said the aim of the program is to improve educational outcomes through sport.
"Secondly they have the values of the Foundation that we also have to include in the program, which includes respect, companionship, fair play," she explained.
The educational value that the students were working on last week was 'languages other than English', with they learnt Spanish greetings, Ms George said.
"The program is not about sporting excellence, it's just trying to improve the educational outcomes for our kids through football," she said.
There are also 27 Wellington Primary School Real Madrid students who take part in the program two hours a week.
They are engaged in activities that promote understanding and development of their social, physical, tactical, educational and laws of the game skills and are coached by Mrs Milgate.
Taylor Jurd
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
