Children at Ipswich’s Castle Hill Primary School wrote a heartfelt letter to the “brave, strong England” team after Sunday’s Euro 2020 final – telling the players: “We are so proud of all of you.”
And after Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were subjected to online abuse after the game, the classmates said: “Please don’t be upset, you are amazing role models.”
Year 2 class teacher Tilly Sadler wrote the letter with the six and seven-year-olds the morning after the heart-breaking penalty shoot-out loss against Italy.
“Some of the students were coming in later in the morning and the first children that came in were talking about it and were worried and concerned about the players,” she said.
On the spur of the moment, the children created a “word cloud” of positive phrases they would use to describe Rashford, Saka and Sancho, after they missed their spot kicks in the final.
“The letter is totally their words,” Ms Sadler said of the children.
It started by saying “well done for making it into the final”, adding: “You tried so hard and played your very best!
“You showed us how to be resilient, how to be a team and how to be mighty.”
Castle Hill Primary headteacher Gemma Andrews said of the pupils: “I am incredibly proud of them. I am humbled and hopeful that the young people of today will make a difference for the future.”
The school also uses its Tuesday assemblies to tackle issues around equality and diversity, with Ms Andrews saying: “It is a part of our agenda as a community because our community has changed quite significantly in the last three years to be much more multicultural.”
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