Naps, then homework - and exams before kick-off: How young players balance football with school
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Art de Roché
The majority of academy players won't make the first team, so there is now importance placed on developing youngsters on and off the pitch
The dream of becoming a professional footballer can be all-encompassing. But what’s your Plan B if you don’t quite make it?
In recent years, Premier League academies have taken a more holistic approach to developing youth players. Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, Josh King of Fulham, Lewis Miley at Newcastle United and Brighton & Hove Albion’s Jack Hinshelwood are setting examples on the pitch, but have done so off it too.
Saka got four A*s (the highest grade) and three As in his GCSE exams (for 15- or 16-year-olds in the UK) in 2018, and King, Miley and Hinshelwood all completed their A-Levels aged 18 while competing in the Premier League for their clubs.
Across the board, Premier League academy scholars achieved record-breaking GCSE, A-Level and BTEC results (a more skills-related course that includes an apprenticeship) in the summer of 2025, according to the league.
There were 76 A-Level exam entries across 17 different subjects (an increase from 55 a year earlier) and pass rates grew to 97 per cent. Furthermore, 89 per cent of players who started an A-Level subject completed the course and sat the exam this year (up from 70 per cent in 2023).
At GCSE level, in both 2024 and 2025, more than 80 per cent of players in academies achieved a Grade 4 (C) or higher in English, with both years surpassing the national average by approximately 30 per cent. In maths, that rate was 75 per cent, with both years surpassing the national average by roughly 20 per cent.
There are approximately 500 players in the Premier League, and around 32 per cent (at least eight at each of the 20 clubs, making 160) are required to be ‘homegrown’. But combining school and football isn’t easy — and it includes fitting in naps before homework, taking mock exams ahead of FA Youth Cup games and learning from those who have done it before you.
With Arsenal bringing through more and more youth players to the first team, from Saka to Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and more recently Andre Harriman-Annous, Max Dowman and Marli Salmon, we spoke to the Premier League’s head of education David Rainford, the north London side’s academy manager Per Mertesacker and their under-18s midfielder Teshaun Murisa to discuss how the club balance their youngsters’ education and training.
The additional focus on academic achievement has partly come as a result of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), which was set up in 2012-13 to modernise youth development in the English game.
Before its introduction, young players tended to take fewer GCSEs to give them more time to focus on their football careers. But new guidelines mean they now have to take at least eight subjects at GCSE level, mirroring their peers outside of academies. There are now three training programmes: part-time, in which you train at the academy after school hours; hybrid, so players can join their club on ‘day release’ (maybe leaving school at lunchtime); and full-time training, with football development entwined with the school timetable.
Most scholars will be on a hybrid model, with Tuesdays being the time for ‘day release’. Seventeen of the 29 Category 1 (being the highest grade) academies have access to a full-time version, which draws some influence from the student/athlete culture in the United States. Manchester United’s link to their local Dean Trust schools is arguably the best-known example, with Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Elanga all benefitting.
Arsenal now have seven players on a full-time programme, which means they can recruit nationally from under-14s level, placing young players with a host family and at a fee-paying school where they can benefit from scholarships. Mertesacker, for example, remembers seeing Nwaneri “in his full school gear” at Arsenal’s training ground, having come straight from his lessons.
“It’s very individual, because they have to be at school three days a week,” adds Mertesacker. “To cater for that, there will be team sessions at the first-team training ground, but there will also be individual sessions.
“I remember with Ethan (Nwaneri) and Myles (Lewis-Skelly), on Monday night, when they’re supposed to be at Hale End. Instead, they did individual sessions here on a day release the next day, just to not overload them.”
Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly came through Arsenal’s academy together (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
The summer’s lengthy school holidays provide opportunities for youngsters to be involved in pre-season training but when a new term begins each September, the plans become flexible.
Sometimes, players will have their schooling at their club’s training grounds. Mertesacker jokes that he still sees Lewis-Skelly walking around the place with his A-Level Spanish teacher.
That is now also the case with Dowman, who turns 16 later this week and will sit for his GCSEs next year. He featured regularly in pre-season and had come off the bench for Arsenal’s first team in the Premier League, Carabao Cup and Champions League this season before suffering an ankle injury.
“We’re all keen for him to finish his GCSEs as strongly as possible,” says Mertesacker. “Entering (the first team) at a similar rate to Ethan and Myles, maybe a year earlier, we need to help him. His parents and his family have been brilliant with that, making sure he still understands he’s a schoolboy playing first-team football.
_“_It’s not easy if you play Champions League and the next day you know we have to put in lessons for him. He has operational challenges, but we’re up for it because we want to make sure he still has a sense of reality. We have to fulfil the foundation work that’s important to every child and their families.”
Those decisions would usually come towards the end of a season, when kids’ school exams are about to start, but Rainford says they now “happen as early as we feel possible” to try to be fair to all involved.
Max Dowman, left, and Andre Harriman-Annous have played in the Champions League this season (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
The emphasis on youngsters taking their studies seriously has been demonstrated by Arsenal Under-18s midfielder Murisa.
Now aged 17, he was in Year 11 last season — the stage when students in England take their GCSEs — and beat Saka’s Arsenal record for the club’s best academic results. He received six nines and three eights, which translates to six A*s and three high-As-to-A*s in letter grades.
In February, he spent a morning sitting mock exams for geography and computer science before starting at the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal Under-18s in the FA Youth Cup quarter-final against their Manchester United counterparts.
Murisa, who grew up in Barking in east London, tells The Athletic: “My parents got me into a routine where I was always learning. I was reading and writing before I went to nursery, and at the same time, they taught me football in the garden when I was three years old.
“That’s all stuck with me for the rest of my life and helped me to always want to learn, get better and stay disciplined. Those habits have helped me get to where I am now. More recently, some routines are that, as soon as I’m home from training, I have a nap before I do my homework.”
Teshaun Murisa took mock exams the same day as playing for Arsenal Under-18s in February (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
At Arsenal, the examples don’t stop with Murisa.
In May, Lewis-Skelly was named Scholar of the Year, and fellow academy graduate Tom Smith won the Premier League’s Academy Alumni of the Year – Beyond the Pitch award.
Goalkeeper Smith plays for Colchester United in League Two, the fourth tier of the English game, after leaving Arsenal in 2023, but started studying economics and management at the London School of Economics while still based in north London, and achieved first-class honours.
“This is before we had our university partnerships, and he asked for his degree to be paid for as part of his contract,” Rainford says.
Arsenal agreed, and Mertesacker adds: “We’re not only paying for the football education, but we also pay and cater for the academic success_._ I invited him back to the directors’ box to celebrate and he’s sitting down with our director of operations, connecting with people. He can maybe lead projects when he’s finished playing.”
The club are doing similarly with Smith’s fellow goalkeeper Remy Mitchell.
The 21-year-old was previously with the academy from age nine before leaving for Swansea City in 2022, but rejoined Arsenal’s under-21s setup this summer as a training goalkeeper while running coaching sessions at Hale End and doing a business-studies course via the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), the players’ union.
The reality is that not everyone will become a Saka-type who has flourished in both worlds, so the Premier League provides scholarships for former academy players to access university places as well as positions working with partners of the league on 12-month programmes. “We’ve just had three players do an internship at Bauer Media, who oversee (UK radio station) KISS FM,” Rainford says.
Manchester United Under-21s goalkeeper Dermot Mee has been on one such internship, while Jack Walker, an Aston Villa academy alumnus, is now a weapons engineer in the Royal Navy.
On academies’ life skills programme, which is offered at age-appropriate stages to groups from under-nines up, topics covered include gaming, betting, financial literacy, anti-doping, healthy relationships, media training and how to conduct yourself on social media.
Arsenal’s life skills programme is called the ‘Lifelong learning programme’ and has workshops for parents and players. It also helps to have examples to follow: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s recent return to the club, where the 32-year-old England midfielder has been training with their under-21s, is the standout example.
Mertesacker says: “I told him (Oxlade-Chamberlain) straight: you can have that access (to train) and we’re happy to cater, but you are a mentor to these players. He said he thinks he’s making a positive impact. The message he’s given to the players is to think about what an opportunity they’ve got here: ‘Don’t play around with it. Play with your full heart. Bring your full effort every single day’.”
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain training with Arsenal last month (John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Nico Yennaris, also 32, and an Arsenal academy graduate who has played his football in China for the last six years, also returned to their training ground to talk to players about his journey and struggles.
Tyreece John-Jules, 24, who was at the club when current manager Mikel Arteta was appointed in December 2019, recently came back to train before landing a contract with Scottish top-flight club Kilmarnock in October. He also spoke to the under-21s about his battles with injuries, and how those moments could have gone differently from his perspective.
Players between 15 and 18 are at an important juncture in their lives.
The reality is that the vast majority will not make the grade at the highest level.
It is what makes the development of the individual, on and off the pitch, all the more important.
