Albion in the Community's aims to help over 900 Sussex families over the next three years through a new Family Matters: Learning Through Football initiative.
The new four-week course is aimed at bringing families together and helping to improve their collective learning ability.
Matt Mead, who is leading the course, explained, "Each child or children attending spend 90 minutes with a parent, grandparent or other family member at one of the club's Sussex study support centres.
The session is split into two 45-minute parts: the first part is based indoors, with the participants working as a family group to complete various tasks, including communication, team building, numeracy and literacy.
"The aim of the project is to give families a unique learning experience together as a family through the power of football.
"The second half of the session is a traditional football session, taking place outside and focuses on a number of different aspects of football: from fun games, coaching and refereeing."
The course is currently being run at Albion in the Community study support centres at Withdean, and satellite centres at Worthing, Hastings United and Bognor Regis Town. Each centre will hold six courses per year, each lasting for four weeks.
We recruit by going to the local schools and speaking with the heads of the school. The course is open to any child from any background, with an interest in football.
"The first course has been aimed at eight to ten year olds - but we will have courses for older and younger age groups," adds Matt. "The schools who have been involved so far are Patcham Junior School, Westdene, St Joseph's and St Mary Magdalen's.
"The course began this week, but we have already had great feedback from the families, who have really enjoyed the first week. We hope the word gets out about the work we are doing and that this project will be a great success."
