Teacher helps link Wolves to schools through Primary Stars scheme

Primary Stars is currently celebrating its fifth anniversary and, when it started out back in 2017, Luke Craze was a teaching assistant, just embarking on his career in the classroom.

Now he is better known to his pupils as ‘Mr Craze’, working as a Year Three teacher and PE co-ordinator at Bantock Primary School in Pennfields.

Luke is very much the point of contact for Wolves Foundation staff in working with the school to deliver Primary Stars, and his approach and values have now seen him named as the Wolves’ Primary Stars Superstar.

Currently 105 professional football clubs from across the leagues run in-classroom Premier League Primary Stars sessions in local schools, and all have been asked to nominate a superstar to mark the fifth anniversary of the scheme.

Josh Uppal, Schools educator with the Foundation, explains: “Luke is a teacher who really lives up to the values of Premier League Primary Stars.

“He is always really welcoming and great to work with both for the children, staff and the Foundation.

“We were delighted to present him with his ‘Superstar’ status as part of Primary Stars five-year anniversary, an accolade which he thoroughly deserves.”

The presentation which took place at an assembly at Bantock saw Luke receive a Nike Strike football – thanks to Premier League partner Nike – and a framed, limited-edition anniversary illustration, created by graphic designer and digital illustrator Zem Clarke.

Luke, who was also gifted his own personalized ‘CRAZE 1’ Wolves shirt from the Foundation, was both delighted and surprised to receive the award.

He said: “It was a huge shock but a nice surprise! To see all the pupils here when my name was called out was the best thing really.

“Hopefully they understand how hard we work here at Bantock to promote sport and physical activity through Premier League Primary Stars, and how important it is for their wellbeing.

“Over the five years that I’ve been here, with the help of Primary Stars and Wolves Foundation, the quality of our physical education has just grown so much.

“When I first started, we had support from Wolves Foundation one afternoon a week, and from that we then moved to two days with lunch-time and after-school clubs.

“Now we’re seeing the children involved in things like netball and dodgeball and all the sports that we weren’t familiar with before - the pupils now have a massive motivation to take part in them.

“The connection between the school, Foundation and Premier League has been huge over the whole time I’ve been here.”

Report by the Wolves Foundation's Paul Berry