Wolverhampton School to Host World Cup Replay Watch Party

A primary school in Wolverhampton is organizing a watch party for pupils to view a replay of England's World Cup match together, with students asked to keep the score secret if they watch the live broadcast.

School Plans As-Live Screening

Villiers Primary School in Bilston will screen the re-run of England's match against Mexico at 09:00 BST on Monday, following the live broadcast which starts at 01:00 BST. Assistant headteacher Carly McKenzie told BBC 5 Live's Sunday Breakfast show that the school is doing an "as-live watch-along" to allow all pupils to experience the match together.

McKenzie said some teachers are also trying to avoid learning the result beforehand, including by turning off their social media. The BBC is offering a 'Stay Up or Catch Up' option for its live coverage of the game.

Building Excitement Around the World Cup

McKenzie told presenter Jeanette Kwakye that the children have been enjoying the World Cup competition, and the school wanted to mark the last-16 knockout match in a special way. "We were thinking about what to do and we had lots of different ideas," she said. "One of them was to have lots of different football skill drills on the field and to get them taking part in different activities on that day to celebrate the England game. But then we thought on the build up to it, you know what, lets just let them watch it."

Children who have already seen the match are in line for a relaxing morning, but the school hopes they will not reveal the result. "We've asked if they are going go and watch it on the evening with their families, we absolutely understand that, it's something that the children want to celebrate with them. But we have asked them, and I don't know how this will work, but we've asked them to keep it a secret as much as possible, with the score. We are going to watch it all together at 9 o'clock," McKenzie said.

School-Wide Engagement

The school, which has about 700 children, has been "really excited" about the World Cup and held activities in the build-up to the tournament. One of their teachers is a semi-professional goalkeeper, and the school went out "class by class" to try a penalty shoot out against them.

McKenzie added: "Regardless of whether we win, hopefully we do. But regardless of what happens, I think our children are going to remember this for a really long time."