Kids are swapping their Xboxes for footballs by taking part in Barrow AFC Community Trust’s summer holiday course at St Bernard’s School.

The course is for kids aged 5-11 who want to stay active and enjoy sports through the summer holidays and is focused on football, after the club ran a multi-sport event at the school last week.

Kane Fitch, a community coach with the Bluebirds and footballer for Holker Old Boys, said: “It’s a good way to get the kids to stay active through their time off school and spend it outdoors, rather then sat inside playing Xbox.”

“It is also a good way for kids to connect with other kids and stay socialised and make new friends.”

Each day, the kids learn a different topic which progresses each week. The course at St Bernard’s is now onto its third week.

Fitch said: “We’ve had between 30 and 40 kids a day, which is very good, considering it is school holidays and a lot of families tend to go away on holiday. The reception has been great, and the kids seem to really enjoy it.”

Fitch, 21, has signed for Holker Old Boys this season from Dalton United and hopes for good results in the coming weeks as well as helping to give the kids involved a pathway into football themselves.

Barrow AFC’s Community Trust always run camps through school holidays, making this month’s their biggest undertaking of the year.

St Bernard’s, on Rating Lane in Barrow, have been hosting the course for the last three weeks, with the current week and the first focused solely on football, sandwiching five days in which the kids were able to sample other sports.

The summer roadshow will be moving on to Furness College later in the month, at a venue where the Bluebirds’ Performance Centre hold their training sessions.

The Centre also has new a partnership with the College where students can combine studying for a BTEC in Sport with training with AFC’s youth team.