This weekend’s Oldham Athletic fixture against Cambridge United will be allocated as a dedicated fixture to Oldham Athletic Community Trust (OACT).
Oldham Athletic Community Trust are using their dedicated matchday to say thank you to school staff for all their hard work across the pandemic as pupils return to full classes again this week.
School pupils have this week returned to the classroom following another extended period away due to the Covid-19 lockdown. As part of this weekends dedicated matchday Oldham Athletic Community Trust will be celebrating and saying thank you to school staff for all their hardwork & dedication, before, during and beyond the pandemic.
To express our gratitude the Oldham Athletic players will warm up in OACT t-shirts, with each t-shirt featuring a different OACT school partner.
In addition to this, as we build up to the fixture, we would like to provide schools with the opportunity to share various messages of thanks, praise and gratitude for individuals or groups connected with their school. Should you wish to take advantage of this opportunity please email Jack.Garside@OACT.org.uk by 9am on Thursday 11 March, with messages shared via our social media channels. The fixture will also see Latics fan and Royton Hall Teacher, Tim Belfield become a virtual mascot on the day.
Martin Vose, OACT Head of Community, commented: "Everyone at OACT hugely appreciates all of the hardwork and dedication shown by school staff, hence why we wanted to dedicate this matchday to our local school network as our way to say thank you. It is a shame that we can’t host this matchday by inviting the school staff to the ground however this is something that we can look forward to for future seasons.
"I would also like to thank everyone at Oldham Athletic for the continued support, especially allowing us to host a second dedicated matchday of the season. We know first-hand how difficult it has been for school staff and we want to take this opportunity to celebrate the hard work and commitment they have shown throughout the pandemic.
"Lastly, I would like to ensure that our own OACT school-based staff receive the praise that their continued efforts deserve. Throughout the lockdown they have worked tirelessly to provide both in-school and digital support to schools, ensuring that children can still access physical activity opportunities."
Update - 09/03/21
Thanks to the support of both PL Communities and Barclays, we are delighted to announce that across the Easter half-term holidays we will be holding free holiday activity clubs at sites across Oldham as we play our small part in ensuring that children stay physically active as Covid-19 restrictions ease.
In addition, to the range of activities delivered each day we will also provide every child attending with a nutrional meal completely, free of charge, linked to the ongoing holiday hunger initiative.
We can now announce our first two holiday club sites. We are delighted to be working in partnership with both Willowpark Academy and Lyndhurst Primary School to provide this opportunity, which will be exclusively available to students at each school respectively.
We are set to announce more sites in the coming days, along with further information.