Selworthy School held a special World Cup WOW event this week, and Tom Abell and Dom Bess dropped in to take part.

Selworthy School is a co-educational special school for children and young people with learning disabilities aged four to 19.

Earlier this year the names of all the countries involved in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup were placed in a hat. The countries were then picked out at random by each class.

The children then spent a number of lessons preparing a project on their chosen country which was presented at the special World Cup WOW event on Wednesday.

As part of Somerset County Cricket Club’s annual partnership with the School, Tom and Dom visited the students and see their projects.

Cameron Merry, Fundraising Lead at Selworthy School said: “WOW afternoons form part of the celebration of our topics and bring our whole school community together. It was great that Tom and Dom were able to join us and be part of this, celebrating the different cultures that are participating in the World Cup. It’s also the first time that our parents have been involved in our educational partnership with SCCC and it was a great way to introduce them to the mutual benefits that the partnership provides.”

A huge amount of effort went into each project and the two Somerset players were extremely impressed by what they saw.

“It was a really good day,” said Dom. “It was amazing to see how much fun everyone was having and to see some of the children that I’d seen at the coaching session earlier in the year. It was good to speak with some of the teachers too. They are the unsung heroes and it was amazing to see how well they interact with the children.”

Tom was equally captivated. “It was another great day at Selworthy,” said the Somerset Captain. “Every visit to the school is different, and it was great to be able to help put some smiles on their faces. It’s a really good thing for us as players to be doing.”

In addition to the World Cup WOW presentations, Tom and Dom spent some time working with the children in several classrooms.

Spencer Bishop SCCC’s Media and Community Executive outlined the purpose of the partnership. “Over the last three years we’ve been working with Selworthy school on an educational programme which is designed to benefit the children at the school,” he said. “We’ve created the four-part project which sees our players and the learners get together four times a year to work on four main elements: healthy eating, healthy lifestyles, numeracy and literacy.

“The feedback we’ve had from the school has been extremely positive, and the players genuinely enjoy spending time with these remarkable children. It’s been great to see the players and children form relationships over the last few years and we are all looking forward to the next phase of the project which will see us help to deliver a cricket themed maths session in early July.”