PE THEMED: Fairer Football for All

Age Range: 8-14 (see differentiation)

60 min plus tournament time

Overview:
In this activity pupils will consider how fairness relates to rules. They will think about this
through sport, and specifically the rules of football. The rules of football try to make it fair. But
some people are more able to access football than others. They explore how they could make
rules to make the game even fairer, before coming up with their own rule to play a Fairer
World Cup tournament. This links to ideas about how rules in society make society farier, and
how this links to their learning in the rest of the scheme. These questions can be used to link
PE to other subject areas.

Learning Objectives:
Pupils consider how rules can make
games fairer or less fair for everyone
to play.
To decide how to change rules in
football to ensure everyone can
participate.
To compare rules in sport to rules in
society which help make society
fairer?
Learning Outcomes:
To organise and run a Fairer World
Cup football tournament in school,
which enables all pupils to fully
participate.

Key Questions
How is the world unfair?
What is taking action?
How can we take action?
Keywords
unfair action change

Resources:
PE PowerPoint
Rule of the Game activity sheets
Fairness Rules display sheets
Tournament Tables

Key Curricular Links

England
Physical Education: communicating,
collaborating and competing
Wales
Physical Education: Competitive
activities, learning games and playing
in teams
Scotland
Physical Education, physical activity
and sport: Cooperation and
competition

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Fairer Football for All: (15 min)

PowerPoint slides 111
This initial discussion links to areas beyond the PE curriculum, but could be carried out in other
curricular areas (for example, Citizenship/PSHE) or extracurricular time (for example, form
time/assemblies). This initial discussion is important to set the scene for their Fairer World Cup
Football Tournament, which pupils will plan and organise.
Ask pupils whether the rules of football are fair for everyone.
Ask pupils whether there are times when having the same rules might not actually be fair.
Encourage pupils to debate this. Their initial reaction might be that fairness means having the
same rules, but encourage them to think about occasions where changing them might be fairer
to enable everyone to participate fairly (for example, different ages, abilities, gender,
disabilities).
Go through some specific examples in the PowerPoint slides and ask pupils to think about how
they could amend the rules to make them fairer (for example, a team which is younger scores 2
points per goal).
Get pupils to test their proposed rules by asking if the rule make the game fairer for all, most,
some or a few players.
A Fairer World Cup Football tournament
1. Planning (30 min)
PowerPoint slides 1216
Explain to pupils that they are going to organise a football tournament which is completely fair for all
pupils who are playing (of different ages, genders, abilities and needs). This could be across their class,
across their year group, or across their whole school.
To do this they will need to decide what their fairness rules will be. Encourage pupils to discuss and
agree this, either in groups or as a class. Once they have decided their fairness rules, pupils will have
to split into teams. Each team will be a World Cup country. Encourage each team to decide a fairness
motto for their team.
Once pupils have worked out their tournament rules and their team mottos, they can include these in
their World Cup Fairness Display.
2. Playing the game!
When pupils are ready, play the tournament. This can be done in PE curriculum time.
Pupils could take photos of their tournament and include this in their World Cup Fairness Display.
Differentiation (if needed)
Make it easier
By reading through the case studies with pupils.
Make it harder
By not giving pupils examples but asking them to come up with their own.

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Plenary (15 min)

PowerPoint 1718
Use slide 17 to ask pupils to reflect on the tournament. How did it go? Was everyone able to
participate? How did people enjoy it? Do they think having everyone able to participate equally was
more or less enjoyable?
You could link this to the World Cup. For example, countries who are competing to play in the World
Cup dont all have the same resources. Does this make the tournament fair?
Extension (20min)
You could extend this discussion to consider life more generally. This discussion links to areas beyond
the PE curriculum, but could be carried out in other curricular areas (for example, Citizenship/PSHE) or
extra curricular time (for example, form time/assemblies). However, it is an excellent opportunity to
allow pupils to link their learning across curriculum areas.
PowerPoint 1921
Ask pupils to apply their learning about rules to life more generally. Are they important to help make
society fairer?
Encourage pupils to think of some examples. They may think of some more obvious things like criminal
laws. However, encourage them to think about other rules, and how sometimes it is fairer to make
certain rules different for different people. An example given is tax, for which different rules might help
to increase fairness in society.
Also encourage pupils to think about the importance of governments as the people who set the rules,
by listening to the people they represent.

Teacher content background notes

When considering the further work, tax is a key rule which relates to inequality (a major
theme of the wider resource).
Oxfam campaigns on tax to reduce inequality. For more information see
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/working-for-the-few-political-capture-andeconomic-inequality-311312

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Oxfam Education
www.oxfam.org.uk/education

Fairness Rules

Oxfam Education

www.oxfam.org.uk/education

Our Team Fairness Rule:

Our Team Fairness Rule:

Our Team Fairness Rule:

Our Team Fairness Rule:

Copyright Oxfam GB. You may reproduce this document for educational purposes only.