EURO
2012
Poland - Ukraine
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Dear Teacher or Librarian
We’ve put together this bumper pack full of fun Euro 2012 literacy activities based around Tom Palmer’s The Squad: Black Op and The Squad:White Fear books.
Tom Palmer is a football fan and writer. He didn’t always do well at school, but once he got into reading about football – in newspapers, magazines and books – he decided to be a football writer. He has now written fourteen books for Puffin, including five in his popular Foul Play series plus six in the brilliant Football Academy series for younger children.
Tom is also a specialist in promoting reading. He visits hundreds of libraries and schools every year up and down the UK inspiring thousands of young readers.
You can find lots more about Tom on his website www.tompalmer.co.uk, where he also writes a blog about his writing, his life and the schools he has visited.
We hope this pack will be an effective tool in helping you to encourage children to enjoy reading and writing for pleasure.
You are welcome to copy any of these pages you need as well as the free first chapters of all the books at www.tompalmer.co.uk. For more free resources sign up to Tom’s termly literacy
newsletter – email [email protected]
In addition to this pack of ideas, Tom Palmer is working with the National Literacy Trust to produce:
• A daily cliff hanger story written to respond to the events of Euro 2012 as they unfold – the
story will be influenced both by events in the tournament and by children voting for what they want to happen next each Friday.
• A daily writing exercise stimulated by on and off the field events at Euro 2012.
Both resources will be available from www.literacytrust.org.uk/schools_teaching/euro_2012
Contents:
Tom Palmer interview 3
Krakow: the city where Black Op and Euro 2012 take place 4
School and library ACTIVITIES for Euro 2012 5
Letter to send home - Top Ten Tips for Parents on using Sport to encourage children to read 6
Euro 2012 Reading Comprehension 7
School and library DISPLAY IDEAS for Euro 2012 8
Euro 2012 Book Review 9
Black Op: The Characters 10
EURO 2012 Prediction Game 11
EURO 2012 Wordsearch 12
EURO 2012 Reading Quiz 13
Wordsearch Solution & Quiz Answers 14
Black Op Discussion Topics 15
Write Your Own Squad story 16
My Squad Story 17
Design Your Own Squad Book Cover 18
Other useful information 19
Tom Palmer’s Books class set offer 20
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Tom Palmer Interview
Children from Ghyllgrove Junior School in Basildon quizzed Tom during a recent visit he
made to their school. They asked him about football, spies and how he spends a lot of his time talking to Premier League footballers about what they like to read.
Why is your new book called Black Op?
It’s about five children who do a black op spying mission.
Black Op means it’s a mission no-one is supposed to know about. I know the game Black Ops is popular, so I thought I’d make the book a bit like that.
Is Black Ops your favourite video game?
No. I prefer FIFA 12.
How come you work with Premier League?
I help the National Literacy Trust with a reading scheme called Premier League Reading Stars
(literacytrust.org.uk/premier_league_reading_stars ). Famous footballers have recommended their favourite books to children, then set challenges for the
children to complete. Players like Wayne Rooney and Jamie Carragher have been involved.
What happens in Black Op?
A group of child spies use playing for an England youth team as their cover story. They are sent to Krakow in Poland to stop terrorists attacking the England football team.
Is there a sequel?
There is. And it’s free. I’m doing a free online story for schools, with an episode every day during Euro 2012 featuring the characters from Black Op. They’ll be charged with stopping another catastrophe. You can read it at www.literacytrust.org.uk .
Who do you think will win Euro 2012?
Germany. (Though I want England to win it, of course.)
Why Germany?
They are great at tournaments. I think they’ll meet Spain in the final and win in extra time, using their physical game to shut the Spanish down. Holland could easily have won the 2010 World Cup final playing that way.
Why is Black Op linked to Euro 2012?
It’s set just before the tournament. I think that one of the most exciting parts of a tournament is the beginning, when anything is possible. Also, I love Poland and Krakow, where the England team are based. I went to Krakow in 2011 to research the book and it includes lots of real places that the England players will be seeing.
If you were compared to any writer, who would it be?
It’s hard to say. I like to think that Black Op is like Anthony Horowitz crossed with my Foul Play
books. I think Horowitz is a great writer. I love all his Alex Rider books.
If you would like to ask Tom a question, feel free to email him at [email protected] or
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Krakow: The City Where Black Op & Euro 2012 Takes Place
Krakow is a beautiful city in the south of Poland, relatively near the border with Ukraine. It is both the city where England will be based during Euro 2012 and the setting for Tom Palmer’s Black Op novel.
Black Op takes place a week before the tournament kicks off. The England team have arrived and – as well as training – are meeting groups of local people in their host city.
Tom went to Krakow to find out more about the city. It’s important to him to get his facts right.
Krakow is a beautiful city. There will be lots of coverage about the city in the week before Euro 2012. Watch and listen out to see if they mention the sculpture and the church tower.
This huge, hollow statue called "Eros Bound”is in the main square of Krakow.
One of the spies in the book uses the statue to covertly watch a pair of terrorists, looking through one of the open eye
sockets. He then lures them inside the statue in a bid to stop them carrying out their terrible plans.
If Tom hadn’t seen the sculpture in
person, he would never have been able to imagine that twist in the story.
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School And Library ACTIVITIES For Euro 2012
Have a Morning Papers Reading Club session every morning or lunchtime of Euro
2012. Invite football fans to come to talk about the latest football newspaper match reports, magazines and books. Choose big days such as the day before or after each of the England games. Buy a selection of newspapers. Encourage the children to bring in a magazine, book or website print out.
Buddy up the older children with younger ones for the duration of Euro 2012. Arrange for them to
meet once a week to talk about and read a short football book together.
Have an assembly about football and reading. Make up a panel of guests. A sporty teacher or two? A football-loving Y5 or Y6? A local journalist who does a bit of football reporting? A coach from the local team. An author. Ask them questions about the football action and what they like to read about football. For more ideas have a look at Love Football: Love Reading on
www.literacytrust.org.uk.
Football magazine debate. Buy all four main football magazines: Kick, Match of the Day, Match
and FourFourTwo. Challenge a group of children to champion each magazine and give short presentations about why their magazine is the best. Have a vote to see which is the most popular.
Read aloud Tom Palmer’s daily football cliff hanger story. Then join in, as children from around the UK vote for what they want to happen next.www.literacytrust.org.uk/schools_teaching/euro_2012
Watch a two-minute clip of Euro 2012 action from the night before. Then challenge the children to make up a commentary. Encourage them to do research on the players so that they can fill their commentary with facts. Play them examples of radio and TV commentary as preparation.
Do Tom Palmer’s daily Euro 2012 writing exercise, where Tom sets a writing activity based on
what happened at Euro 2012 the day before. www.literacytrust.org.uk/schools_teaching/euro_2012
Visit a library or a bookshop and ask them to show you what football – and sporting – stock they
have in. Ask a librarian or bookseller to give you a tour. This can help overcome some children’s confusion about what libraries and bookshops are about.
Look at the Premier League Reading Stars resources on the
www.premierleaguereadingstars.org.uk website. There are films and photographs of football stars talking about why reading is so important – and so much fun.
Ask Tom Palmer to send you a set of his Euro 2012 scorecards: handy pocket-sized cards to help the children chart the tournament.
Mix some of the ideas above with football activities to keep everyone’s adrenaline up. For example, run an activity followed by a penalty shootout, then another activity, then finish with a short game of football.
Send Tom Palmer’s letter home with Top Ten Tips for Parents on using Sport to encourage
children to read (see overleaf)
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Dear Parent or Guardian
New research from Bristol and Oxford universities has shown that when a country is heavily involved in international sports, its school pupils' academic results are significantly worse.
Given that we have both Euro 2012 and the Olympics this summer, Puffin children's author and literacy consultant Tom Palmer has shared with us his Top Ten Tips for Parents on using Sport
to encourage children to read, sowe can buck the trend. We hope you will enjoy some of his
tips and help make our pupils this summer's Reading Champions.
1.Be seen reading by your children – newspapers, magazines and books. Keep telling them about
interesting things you’ve found out.
2.Have newspapers round the house, in the TV room or at breakfast – or even deliver a
newspaper to their room in the morning on a special sporting day
3.Look out for special edition magazines – like the Euro 2012 issues of Match, Match of the Day, FourFourTwo or World Soccer at your local library or newsagents.
4.Listen to audio books of sporting stories for trips in the car. Order them from your public
library or bookshops in good time.
5. Find out when your local library is holding special Olympic or Euro 2012 events. Have they got any extra sporting bookstock in?
6. Take your child to a bookshop and let them choose one of dozens of sporting books
available. Let them make the choice and be open-minded about what they choose.
7.Offer to help your school to run some Olympic or Euro 2012 reading activities. Mix sports coaching or school screenings of games with reading and writing about them.
8.Challenge them to a Euro 2012 prediction game. Find newspapers, magazines and websites
together to make the best player decisions so that they can try to beat you in predicting scores and scorers.
9.Check out sports news pages online. Many of them will have competitions and interactive
activities that will encourage reading and research.
10.Read Tom Palmer’s free online Euro 2012 Squad story based in Krakow and responding to
this year’s tournament as it unfolds. Download it daily at www.literacytrust.org.uk
Have a great summer
Best wishes
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Euro 2012 Reading Comprehension
The Squad : Black Op by Tom Palmer
Puffin ISBN 978-0141337784
From Page 157
The centre of Krakow had changed radically in the couple of hours the Squad had been at their
posts.
Watching.
Waiting for the attack.
Now there were thousands of people standing behind crowd-control barriers, including hundreds of
schoolchildren and dozens of police officers.
It looks so unreal that it seems like a film set, Lily thought. For a disaster movie.
Kester – the Squad leader – felt a stab of panic in his heart. He was supposed to be leading this
operation and so far they’d come up with nothing.
He felt like he was failing, that the England team were about to be attacked and that he had done
nothing to stop it.
1 What city are the Squad in?
4 What sort of movie does it remind Squad member Lily of?
6 What team are about to be attacked?
2 What is holding the thousands of people back?
3 Who are amongst the police officers and people in the crowd?
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School and Library DISPLAY IDEAS for Euro 2012
Ask a small group of football fans to become your Euro 2012 display team. Using the ideas below, they should be able to create an exciting display to encourage reading around the football for the three weeks of the tournament.
Make sure you have a large wall space. It could be in the hall, the library or near reception so that parents can see it too.
The centre piece of your Euro 2012 needs to be a wall chart recording scores and league tables. You could use a free one from magazines or newspapers, or make a better larger one for
yourselves that you can also update the league tables on. This will bring people back to look at the display each morning.
Take some photos of teachers and children from the school wearing football tops and reading something to do with the game. Magazines. Books. Newspapers. Websites. Place the pictures around your display or about the school to attract people to your display.
Keep a space for daily match reports from the newspapers. You can either stick up reports from the newspapers or print them off the internet.
Ask one of the sporty teachers to run a prediction challenge. Perhaps each class could guess what the main events of the tournament are going to be. Take on Tom Palmer whose predictions are included in this pack. Over the three weeks keep a tally of which class is in the lead. This will bring people to have a look at the display every day.
Part of the plan is to encourage reading, so have a selection of books, magazines and
newspapers on a table next to the display. Provide seats for browsers to enjoy a good read.
You could even encourage a sporting book or magazine swap shop based underneath the display.
Create a Goal Wall. Make a 2D goal on a wall in school. Three strips of white card plus some
basic string netting – real or drawn – at the back. Make lots of ball shaped sheets (see Page 9) where children can write the name of a book they’ve read, the author, give it a star rating and maybe even write a few words. If they liked it ask them to stick the ball in the back of the net. If they thought it was okay, have it hit the post and if they hated it, then they can stick it wide of the goal.
Find five excerpts from football books – fiction, player biographies, fact books. Copy them onto a blank sheet. Copy the books’ covers. Stick them next to your display and challenge the children to match the text with the cover. (Tip: most books’ first chapters are free on Amazon.) You can get Tom Palmer book covers by emailing him at [email protected].
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Euro 2012 Book Review
Use this sheet to write about your favourite book.
Fill in each section, then give the book a mark out of five by colouring in the stars.
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Black Op: The Characters
This rough guide will help you enjoy the daily classroom read 2012 Euro
Mystery & the rest of the Squad series.
Lily is a kind and friendly girl. When people meet her they love her. But, when it comes
to it, she is tougher than any of the others in the Squad. She is a very good runner,
having been trained by her father to run in the hills of Yorkshire since she was six.
Although she is not one of the leaders, she is always listened to by those who do lead.
She speaks several languages and is very bright. Lily is a right back in the team.
Hatty is very different to Lily. She is hard and uncompromising. She pushes the other
Squad members to make sure they do what she thinks is right. She comes across as
mean. She doesn’t trust outsiders. Most of the time this is useful, but sometimes it is
dangerous. Hatty finds it hard to understand Lily, but, secretly, she envies her
friendliness and gentler nature. Hatty is a central defender.
Lesh is the technical wizard of the Squad. He can use gadgets and is skilled in
hacking into computer systems to find things out to help the Squad on their
missions. He was born in Poland, but has lived with his parents in England for
several years. Lesh has a very dramatic time in Black Op, meaning his role in the
second book – White Fear – is very different. Lesh is a left back.
Kester is the leader of the Squad. But he relies a lot on Hatty for support. At the
beginning of Black Op the Squad’s leaders have to choose between Kester and Hatty.
The fact that Kester was chosen still remains unresolved during the book. Under
pressure, Kester shows great leadership qualities when the Squad are under great
pressure. He is a central defender, alongside Hatty.
Adnan is the joker of the pack. When he is feeling tense he tries to make everyone
laugh. Sometimes it works: sometimes it doesn’t. Adnan is a loyal member of the
Squad and would do anything for anyone. He is very experienced at outdoor
activities and often takes the lead on missions in the wild. Adnan is a goal keeper.
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EURO 2012 Prediction Game
There are lots of great magazines, books, newspaper articles and websites about Euro 2012. Have
a look at them to help you do this Euro 2012 prediction game.
See how many predictions you get right. Can you get more than Tom Palmer? How about
challenging other children in the school – or even your teachers. Find a prize for whoever does the
best.
And don’t forget to read up about it before you make your choices. That could make the difference
between you winning and losing.
Can you predict … Your Prediction … Tom’s predictions
First team to score in tournament POLAND
First England* player to score GERRARD
First England* player to be booked TERRY
First England* player to be substituted DOWNING
Guess all eight quarter-finalists CZECH REPUBLIC,
RUSSIA, HOLLAND,
GERMANY,SPAIN, ITALY,
ENGLAND, SWEDEN
Team with best record in group stages SPAIN
Team with worst record in group stages DENMARK
Top scoring player VILLA
Euro 2012 runner-up SPAIN
Euro 2012 winner GERMANY
*if you prefer to choose another team than England, then change the name here
You could also run a prediction league to see who can guess the most results (that is, who wins or
draws) in each game. There are 31 games in all. You could keep a total or a chart at the front of
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EURO 2012 Wordsearch
There are sixteen nations playing in the Euro 2012 finals. Can you spot them all in this word search?
Poland Greece Russia
Czech Republic
Netherlands Germany Portugal Denmark
Spain Italy
Republic of Ireland Croatia
France England Ukraine Sweden
D N A L G N E D G N E O U M Q A
N P V X Z O P C N Y F N E U K R
A M J U K R A I N E B C A B R C
L D S W E F A T T H N I T A Y L
E R U F Y P A C R A O T I A M Z
R E F U S K L N R M L R P W N P
I U M O W D Y F S K L Y F Y P A
F E U M E O N G P O R T U G A L
O A E U D N A A O R U F Y P K T
C T A B E C M E L T T H N I R C
EURO 2012 Reading Quiz
There are lots of books, magazines and web articles about the Euro 2012 tournament.
This quiz will test your knowledge of both the tournament and how you can read about it.
1 Why is the football magazine FourFourTwo called FourFourTwo?
(a) Number of players at Euro 2012 (b) team formation (c) price of magazine (£4.42)
2 Which is the best-selling football magazine in the UK?
(a) Match (b) World Soccer (c) Match of the Day
3 Where in most newspapers do you find the football pages?
(a) The back (b) the middle (c) the front
4 Which England player has an autobiography called Growing Up Fast? (a) Peter Crouch (b) Theo Walcott (c) Alex Oxade-Chamberlaine
5 Which England footballer does not have a series of football story books published?
(a) Beckham (b) Rooney (c) Walcott
6 Which of the host countries of Euro 2012 is Tom Palmer’s Black Op set in? (a) England (b) Poland (c) Spain
7 What is the most popular football app for smart phones?
(a) Sky (b) ITV (c) BBC
8 Which sections in a library can you find football books?
(a) Fiction (b) sport (c) biography
9 Which website is the most visited website by football fans in the UK?
(a) SkySports.com (b) bbc.co.uk/sport (c) thefa.com
10 Which of these is not a newspaper that covers football in depth?
(a) The Daily Mirror (b) The Daily Mail (c) The Daily Match
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Euro 2012 Wordsearch Solution
Euro 2012 Quiz Answers
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(b) team formation2
(c) Match of the Day3
(a)The back4
(b) Theo Walcott5
(b) Rooney6
(b) Poland7
(a) Sky8
all three9
(b) bbc.co.uk/sportP a g e
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Black Op
Discussion Topics
Black Op is about a group of child spies, all of whom have lost their parents. They are sent to Krakow in Poland to stop a Russian ex-KGB agent who is trying to blow up the England football team. One of the child spies dies in the story.
The themes described above create a number of possible discussion topics for the book. Tom would like to ask you a few questions about those themes. If your class would like to email him with their thoughts, he would be very interested to hear from you.
Children without parents
Lots of children in stories do not have parents. That includes the five spies in Black Op. They might be orphans. Their parents might have died. Can you think of books or films where children don’t have parents? What do they get up to that you might not be allowed to do? Can you think of how children in books who do have parents are different? Why do you think authors “kill off” parents?
Where do baddies come from?
In Black Op the villain is a former KGB agent from Russia. Think of some books you have read, video games you have played and films you have seen. Where do the baddies come from? Russia is a popular choice. When South Africa was a pariah state, lots of villains came from South Africa. You might notice that many American films portray the British as baddies. Why do you think the authors of some books chose villains from the country they chose them from? How does it make you feel if the British are the baddies?
Is football good enough for stories?
Do you think that football is a good subject for stories? Or, do you think real stories should be about things like war, people having troubles in their lives, even about love. Discuss it as a class. Many people think that football stories are good for getting boys (usually) into books, but then those boys should move onto better books. Do you think this is true? What do you think the value is of stories about football? And do you think girls enjoy football stories as much as boys?
Children dying in books
In Black Op one of the main characters is killed while defending his friends. How does that make you feel? Do you think an author should let a major character die? Especially a child? Or, do you think it is a good thing? Do you still enjoy books where children are in danger but you know they will never actually be killed? Talk about books you’ve read where children have been in danger.
When authors use real stories
Tom Palmer based Black Op on two real events. An attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team and another on the Togo football team. Both times by terrorists. Sports teams are a very visible target and, if terrorists are successful, it means that they get a lot of publicity for their cause. Do you think it is right that an author should use a real tragedy to make up a story and be paid for doing it? Think of books, games and films that you know. What real events have they used to tell stories. Also, are there any real events that you would like to read in a fiction book? What would you choose? Are there any events you wouldn’t like to see used?
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Write Your Own Squad story
Help Tom come up with the idea for his next book. When he writes book three
in The Squad series he’ll needs a place to set it and a good idea. Tom would love to hear your ideas about what his next book should be about.
Squad book one (Black Op) is about a secret spy ring who use a touring football team as their cover to stop a mad Russian murdering the England
football team.
In book two (White Fear) the children have to stop a world war breaking out. We need you to create a third mission for the child spy ring.
When Tom is planning a new book, he asks himself a few questions to help
him work out what to write about. Have a look at these questions and think of
the answers that you would want to read.
Where in the world would you like to set a spy thriller? (for instance, Tom wants to set his next
book in the mountains of Switzerland)
Who would be the villain? (for instance, a scientist could be planning a dangerous attack on a
UK city)
Do they have a personal reason? (for instance, one of their family was killed in a war years ago
by the British).
What sort of settings would the book include? (If Tom set a book in Switzerland, the settings
might include mountain sides, iced-over lakes, abandoned wooden cabins)
When would you set the story? (It could be set now, in the past or even in the future)
What would you call the book? (To fit in with the series the first word needs to be a colour. The
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My Squad Story
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Design Your Own Squad Book Cover
Now design a cover to tell your story in pictures. Look at Tom’s other book covers
and see what they usually look like. Would you draw one to fit in with the others?
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Other Useful Information
Euro 2012 fixtures
Euro 2012 is being held in Poland and Ukraine from 8 June to 1 July. England will play the
following group stage games: France (11 June), Sweden (15 June) and Ukraine (19 June). If they
reach the quarter-finals they will play on 23 or 24 June and the semi-finals on 27 or 28 June. The
final is on 1 July. The full fixtures for countries including Poland and Ireland can be found at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/european-championship/2012/ .
Euro 2012 books and magazines
If you have a budget for them, there are five excellent Euro 2012 books coming out.
They are:
Euro 2012 Fans’ Guide – Keir Radnedge
Official ITV Sport Euro 2012 Fact File – Nick Callow
Ultimate Guide to Euro 2012 & Wall Chart – Stuart Messham
The Irish Fans’ Guide to Euro 2012 – Damien Moran
The Squad : Black Op – Tom Palmer
As for magazines, look out for the Euro 2012 editions of FourFourTwo, World Soccer, WSC, Match of the Day, Match and Kick and special UEFA one-off editions magazine.
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Order Form for Class/Library set of books
******Special Offer 10% discount & carriage free******
Name
School name
Address
Tel
Total £
The Squad Special Price £5.40
Black Op Out May 3rd 2012
Tick to order
The Squad is about a youth football team that represents the
country around the world in international tournaments. But, secretly, five of them are spies, sent to stop foreign agents harming British interests.
Football Academy Set Special £ 32.94
Boys United, Striking Out, The Real Thing, Reading the Game,
Free Kick & Captain Fantastic
Tick to order
The stories of six boys who are part of a fictional Premier League football academy. (7+)
‘I wanted to write a series of books based at a real football academy, a series that would be just like the academies at Manchester City or Arsenal or Swansea. I went to a couple of real academies and met the coaches and players to see what academies are really like. Then I wrote the books, making sure I made it as realistic as possible.’
Foul Play Set Special £31.46
Foul Play, Dead Ball, Off Side, Killer Pass & Own Goal
Tick to order
A series about a boy called Danny who tries to solve crimes in the football world, using his experience reading detective stories to help him.
‘There is loads of crime in football around the world. Kidnaps,
bribery, exploitation of young players. I wanted to create a boy hero who would clean up the game and show a new generation that football is about more than money and puffed-up egos.’
Please hand to Tom or post to:
