Date published: 02 April 2025
TOAN’s winning idea - a primary school girls’ football festival - stood out for its creativity, impact, and potential to inspire young female players
TOAN’s winning idea - a primary school girls’ football festival - stood out for its creativity, impact, and potential to inspire young female players
Students from E-ACT The Oldham Academy North (TOAN) are winners of this year’s Manchester United Foundation Premier League Inspires social action challenge, following a day of inspiring presentations at Old Trafford.
The competition, which brought together more than 100 pupils from Manchester United Foundation’s partner high schools, challenged students to develop innovative ideas to promote gender equality in football.
Over the past months, TOAN’s students have been working hard to create a social action project tackling gender equality in sports.
Earlier this month, they showcased their project against 15 other MU Foundation schools and were voted the best project by both the judges and their peers.
TOAN’s winning idea - a primary school girls’ football festival - stood out for its creativity, impact, and potential to inspire young female players.
The team also impressed judges with their well-thought-out plans to promote the event within the local community, ensuring as many young girls as possible have the opportunity to engage with the sport.
As a result of their success, these students will now have the incredible opportunity to represent the Manchester United Foundation at the upcoming Premier League Inspires national finals at Wembley Stadium, where they will compete against representatives from other top clubs.
Chloe, one of the TOAN students involved, said: "As part of our project, we're planning to do assemblies and presentations to help children understand and recognise things they might not have known about inequality, like viewing figures in men's and women's sport.
"All the schools that came here are really passionate and it showed everyone has a fire for working together in order to stop gender inequality."
Mwezi added: "This has been a great experience.
"It taught me a lot about equality that I didn't know before, and it just helped me understand a lot more about females and equality in sports overall."
Headteacher at TOAN, Jessica Giraud, said: "We are incredibly proud of our students for their dedication and creativity in tackling gender equality in football.
"Their hard work and passion for making a difference have been truly inspiring, and we are thrilled to see them recognised at such a prestigious level.
"Representing the Manchester United Foundation at Wembley is an amazing achievement, and we can't wait to see them showcase their ideas on a national stage."
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