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By Plazoom
Last updated 30 April 2026
Bringing the World Cup into the classroom is a great way to harness pupils’ enthusiasm for football and channel it into purposeful literacy work.
The tournament provides a rich context for exploring themes such as teamwork, resilience and national identity. It also offers plenty of opportunities to develop key literacy skills in a meaningful way.
From persuasive writing and poetry to comprehension and spoken language activities, you can use football as a hook to engage readers and writers across KS1 and KS2.
We’ve brought together a selection of ready-to-use World Cup resources designed to help pupils read, respond and create with confidence.
Whether analysing match narratives, writing reports or exploring real-world sporting stories, these resources encourage pupils to think critically and express ideas clearly.
The Winning Goal resource pack
This whole-school primary writing pack encourages pupils to imagine scoring a decisive goal. They'll then produce a story, newspaper report or recount all about the special moment.
The pack includes teaching slides, planning sheets for KS1 and KS2, writing templates and supporting resources like a football shirt design activity.
KS1 football activities
This KS1 World Cup resource pack uses a football-themed poem to inspire pupils to write their own poetry, helping them explore language and develop their understanding of verbs through engaging, sport-focused activities. It includes planning sheets, images and teaching slides.
This KS1 World Cup comprehension pack introduces pupils to the history of the FIFA Men’s World Cup, including its origins, past winners and host countries, through an accessible text and supporting PowerPoint.
You can use it as a whole-class reading activity or for independent and guided comprehension work, with simple questions to check understanding.
KS2 football activities
Try this KS2 World Cup resource pack to harness pupils’ interest in the FIFA Men’s World Cup through creative oracy and writing activities.
Pupils develop their spoken language skills by producing football commentary, then extend their learning by writing a sports article that includes multiple viewpoints from players, managers and fans.
Explore the history of the World Cup with this KS2 reading comprehension pack, which introduces pupils to key facts about the tournament.
The resource includes an accessible text alongside comprehension questions and answers. Use it in whole-class, guided or independent reading sessions to build understanding and vocabulary in context.
LKS2 resources
Explore The Worst Team by Joshua Seigal in this Year 4 reading comprehension unit, where pupils follow a poem about an unlucky football team that shows resilience, teamwork and friendship despite never winning.
The pack includes multiple text formats, structured teaching sequences, vocabulary-focused lessons and discussion activities to deepen understanding and support reading across KS2.
Explore football in South America with this Year 3 writing unit. Pupils study a model non-chronological report then plan and produce their own reports using football as a cross-curricular theme linked to geography.
Football moments from history
Revisit our football-related Topical Tuesdays resources, which remain valuable for developing oracy, writing and research skills even when the events themselves are in the past.
Created by experienced teachers, each pack is designed to get children thinking, talking and writing about real-world issues, using engaging articles from The Week Junior alongside structured activity sheets.
Topics include such as England’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 victory, fan protests over proposed European football competitions, and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
These World Cup ideas give pupils the chance to engage with high-interest texts and tasks, while building core skills in reading, writing and oracy – and may even inspire their own winning pieces of work.
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