INSPIRE - Spring 2016

FEATURE 04

A look back at our 20th Anniversary year and a look ahead to our exciting 2016 Conference.

WELLBEING 16

Is poor mental health now the biggest barrier to pupil achievement?

A look at how PE can help.

LEADERSHIP 10

Team GB — what leadership lessons can schools learn from the world of elite sport?

New YST Ambassador Kimberly Wyatt, unveiled

ACHIEVEMENT

Youth Sport Trust 2016 Conference 3 March — Ricoh Arena, Coventry

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Learn how to improve wellbeing, nurture leadership and boost achievement.

We’ll address the most important issues facing young people today.

How active approaches to teaching literacy and numeracy unlock pupil performance.

Book your place ­— www.youthsporttrust.org

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SPRING 2016

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SAVE THE DATE AD NE 2016 4LJOU 2N –W DO 20 Take part in National School Sport Week 2016, and celebrate the Olympics and Paralympics! To register your interest go to:

www.youthsporttrust.org/NSSW Questions? Email: nssw@youthsporttrust.org

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YST MEMBERSHIP BOOK A YOUTH SPORT TRUST SCHOOL VISIT BEFORE 20 FEBRUARY AND RECEIVE A 10% DISCOUNT PERSONALISED SUPPORT VISITS

ATHLETE MENTOR VISITS

Work with a Youth Sport Trust expert and receive support, practical strategies and resources tailored to you.

Choose from these three visits: 1. Making assessment without levels work for PE in the context of your whole school assessment policy.

2. Developing a curriculum to meet the needs of your learners — supporting transition points.

3. Where is PE in your whole school plan? Ensuring your PE department features prominently in and contributes to your School Improvement Plan.

A visit from one of our athlete mentors is a great way to motivate students and staff. Our world class athletes have extensive experience engaging with young people through personal stories of struggle and success.

Your visit could include the athlete mentoring a specific pupil group, delivering a motivational speech or leading a sporting event.

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of practitioners were inspired or motivated to improve the delivery of PE, school sport and physical activity

WELCOME Happy New Year and welcome to the Spring edition of INSPIRE. Although we’re now well into the school year, I always find the turn of the year a chance to reflect on the achievements of the last 12 months and an opportunity to look forward to the exciting challenges of the year ahead. I feel that good progress was made in 2015, where the depth of evidence linking PE, school sport and physical activity to the health, wellbeing and achievement of our young people is nearing a tipping point.

This edition of INSPIRE continues to shine light on how excellent innovation, alongside high quality delivery of PE and school sport, can have a significant impact on the confidence and progress of young people. For example, on pages 6-7 a number of our member schools showcase their successful approaches to using PE and school sport to develop literacy and raise the achievement of targeted groups of young people.

Our 2016 Conference takes place on Thursday 3 March, with the awards dinner on the preceding evening, at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. This is your chance to learn from some of the best practitioners in the fields of education, health and sport, and listen to leading experts on how PE and sport nurtures leadership and boosts achievement amongst young people. Our Chief Executive Officer, Ali Oliver, takes a look at our keynote speakers and the 2016 Conference programme on pages 4-5.

She outlines why it is a must attend event for your school.

After a brilliant Rugby World Cup 2015, we are very proud of the schools that played a part in the competing teams’ welcome ceremonies. Looking ahead to potential moments of inspiration in 2016, the RBS Six Nations is only days away, our Olympians and Paralympians are on the home straight on their Road to Rio and as with Rugby World Cup 2015, it provides a fantastic opportunity to engage young people in a major sporting event.

Pages 26-27 take a look at Sainsbury’s Active Kids Paralympic Challenge, a programme that we are proud to deliver in partnership with ParalympicsGB, and provides all the information on how your school can sign up to take part and perhaps win the trip of a lifetime.

SPRING 2016

The Government has now published Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation, which aims to tackle the falling levels of sport participation and high levels of inactivity. It sets out a new direction for sport, with a greater focus on projects that have a meaningful, measurable impact on how they are improving lives. The strategy reflects many of the key asks we presented in esponse to the consultation, and we have welcomed the headline priorities of continuing the investment in the Primary PE and Sport Premium; a new remit for Sport England’s to support children from aged five in sport, outside of school; and to better understand the barriers and issues around drop-off in engagement from primary to secondary schools.

With this strategy, we hope there will be a stronger alignment of education, health and sport. Pages 16-17 explore how we are working with secondary schools in Northamptonshire to tackle health and mental wellbeing issues, develop character through the My Personal Best programme (Page 21) and ultimately raise pupil’s achievement.

We now await with interest the Government’s upcoming childhood obesity strategy, which we understand will set out how it will encourage more young children to be active.

Supporting teachers and others working in PE and school sport to further their skills and qualifications remains a key focus for us. As a result, we are launching the new i-Academy. This will offer practitioners a range of accredited courses and qualifications, many of which are delivered online (pages 18-19).

I hope 2016 is a successful year for you and your young people and we look forward to working with you every step of the way.

CONTENTS

04 A look ahead to our 2016 Conference 06 Active learning beyond PE lessons 08 Providing inclusive school sport for all 10 Mission 2012: lessons for school leaders 12 Primary PE and Sport Premium: How to maximise impact and ensure sustainability 14 Step Into Sport International 16 Poor mental health is now the biggest barrier to pupil achievement 18 Introducing the i-Academy 20 Why do Independent schools devote so much time to sport?

21 Developing young people’s character and resilience 22 Hub Schools: addressing the Wolfenden gap 24 Membership news and calendar 26 Active Kids Paralympic Challenge launched ahead of Rio 2016 28 The power of collaboration 30 Headteacher’s thoughts

BARONESS SUE CAMPBELL CBE Chair of Youth Sport Trust

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ALISON OLIVER

Chief Executive Officer, Youth Sport Trust

A LOOK AHEAD TO OUR 2016 CONFERENCE Ali Oliver reflects on the Youth Sport Trust’s 2015 Conference and the celebratory 20th Anniversary year, while also looking ahead at what to expect from our 2016 Conference at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry on 3 March 2016.

93%

REFLECTIONS ON OUR 2015 CONFERENCE

Of delegates agreed with the quote 'I have been inspired and motivated to improve the delivery of PE and sport at school'

No one who attended Youth Sport Trust’s 2015 Conference can forget the powerful impact Kevin ‘the Katalyst’ Carroll, a former Nike Executive, had as our opening keynote speaker. The conference saw more than 600 school leaders and PE practitioners inspired

by Kevin, who taught us to embrace our own creativity in order to maximise the way we work with young people and harness the power of sport to change lives. Inspired by Kevin’s call to action, in 2015 we launched a new network of ‘PE CatalYSTs’ who are helping up to remodel and reposition a 21st century PE curriculum.

94% Of delegates rated the Awards Dinner as good or very good

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Dr Akeem Ali, Director of Public Health for Northamptonshire, and Melanie Howard, co-founder of the Future Foundation, reinforced what we had learnt from Kevin’s opening presentation, paving the way for a new era of PE, physical activity and sport in our schools.

The Future Foundation’s expertise enabled us to take a look 20 years into the future at the potential ‘Class of 2035’. They identified the likely trends in society that could affect young people

and their future relationship with PE and school sport. A range of scenarios transpired. Dr. Ali spoke passionately about why he was investing public health funding into PE and school sport across Northamptonshire as part of an innovative approach to improving young people’s life chances through a direct contribution to their health, wellbeing and achievement.

OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR Our 2016 Conference signals an exciting end to our 20th Anniversary year. A year in which we have forged ahead in pioneering thought leadership, campaigned on the important issues for young people, as well as mobilised even more people through our training and professional networks.

In particular, this academic year has seen us extend our reach and impact on young people’s physical, social and emotional wellbeing through ‘Class of 2035’ inspired innovations. Over the last 12 months we have launched Skills2Achieve, an online tool to support motivate pupils in PE, physical activity and school sport, which also tracks and monitors progress and achievement.

We have piloted a new Youth Sport Award to recognise the impact of participation in PE and school sport on young people. This award, which is an online tool designed for secondary schools and students, also looks at the schools commitment to the wellbeing, leadership and achievement of their pupil’s.

While our cutting edge partnership with the Department of Public Health and Children’s Services in Northamptonshire goes from strength to strength, our Department for Education funded pilot of My Personal Best (My PB), delivering Character Education through PE is meeting the growing need for a refreshed and repositioned secondary PE curriculum. A new Youth Sport Trust Innovation School network has been established to inform a stronger domestic evidence base and understanding of the relationship between PE and sport, physical activity and attainment, and there are now 47 Headteacher Alliances throughout England proactively leading the strategic development of PE and sport in education at a local level.

And finally we end the year with an exciting new partnership and a new ambassador. Developed in partnership with Young Minds, ‘Getting to the Start Line’ is a new programme designed to help students mentally prepare for and cope with examination induced stress.

And 2015 Masterchef Champion and former Pussycat Doll Kimberly Wyatt in her new role as our ambassador has committed to helping us build selfesteem and self-belief in young people through movement and dance.

It has been a busy academic year so far and we are so grateful to our member schools and all the committed practitioners that we have worked with.

Every single one of you have helped us to realise our ambitions for our 20th Anniversary. Our Class of 2035, with your support, is now a launch pad for our work in supporting the next generation — thank you.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM OUR 2016 CONFERENCE It’s becoming harder for colleagues to secure time out of their busy day-to-day roles to access professional development

and network with colleagues. As a result, our conference will now be a one day event held on Thursday 3 March 2016 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. However, we recognise your feedback on the value and importance of the awards dinner.

Taking inspiration from the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic games, this will take place on the eve of conference (Wednesday 2 March 2016).

Our 2016 Conference will have a sharp focus on supporting schools and those working with young people to tackle the most significant and pressing issues young people face today. Leading practitioners will be providing practical advice and ideas on how to strategically use PE and school sport to drive wellbeing, develop leadership skills and raise achievement of pupils. Sessions will explore how to tackle health challenges, such as obesity, and to support pupils’ emotional wellbeing at a time when mental illness is on the rise and schools are challenged in how to respond. It will look at how we can use PE and school sport to develop pupils’ character and resilience and how we can equip them with the kind of leadership and employability skills reported as lacking by the CBI. These areas underpin effective learning and achievement in schools but we will also look carefully at other ways PE and school sport can impact on raising attainment in our schools.

as well as being a respected adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

He has been responsible for devising and implementing very successful schemes, such as Beat the Street and Green Gym, which gets children more active in and outside of schools. Dr Bird will look at today’s inactivity time bomb and its consequences for young people, including a look at how schools can tackle inactivity and keep pupil achievement on track. Tim Shriver is a social leader, an educator, author, film producer, and entrepreneur. He is the Chairman of the global movement Special Olympics, and in that capacity he serves with over 4.5 million Special Olympic Athletes and their families in 170 countries. Tim is an inspirational leader and will speak about championing inclusion and the importance of realising the potential of every young person.

The 2016 Conference will have all the usual opportunities to network with peers and leading suppliers in the world of PE, school sport and school improvement through the world leading exhibition.

There will also be the opportunity to engage with high level politicians and policy makers in the world of education, health and sport.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS This year we are delighted to confirm that Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE is our keynote speaker. Baroness Greenfield is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster and member of the House of Lords.

Specialising in the physiology of the brain, Susan researches the impact of 21st century technologies on the mind, and has written a range of books on this subject, including ‘Mind change and how digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains’. Susan will use her speech to look at the challenges increasing digitalisation poses to our young people, but also how sport and physical activity can positively re-dress and harness some of those effects.

Two further keynote sessions with be delivered by Dr William Bird, MBE and Tim Shriver. Dr Bird is a practising GP

To book your place or to view the programme, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/conference

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ALISON STURLA Development Manager, Youth Sport Trust

We expect every pupil by the age of 11 to know their times tables off by heart, to perform long division and complex multiplication and to be able to read a novel.”

Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education

ACTIVE LEARNING BEYOND PE LESSONS Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan waged a war on illiteracy and innumeracy by setting a new target for England to be the best in Europe and among the top five countries in the world for English and mathematics by 2020.

Alison Sturla looks at the opportunities available through Youth Sport Trust Membership to develop a more active approach to learning.

Not only has there been a radical shake up of the primary curriculum and an increased expectation of young people’s achievement by age 11, but secondary schools now have access to the Key Stage 2 question level analysis for reading, mathematics, English grammar and punctuation and spelling for their Year 7 pupils via RAISEonline1. There was already plenty of pressure on SATs grades before the shake up occurred.

Nicky Morgan has laid down the gauntlet to primary schools by saying that by age 11 all young people should be ready for secondary school.

It’s time we took activity beyond the PE lesson and started to think about how we can develop opportunities for ‘active learning’ in other areas of the curriculum.

Working with our primary member schools, the key challenges facing learners in literacy and numeracy lessons were broadly identified as pupils wanting

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to be up and about during lessons at Key Stage 1, and that boys’ engagement, particularly in literacy lessons, is becoming more of a challenge at Key Stage 2.

In early years settings, active learning has long been an established approach. The benefits not only include an improvement in academic achievement, but also maximises the opportunities for pupils to move beyond the PE lesson.

Active pupils perform better and are better behaved. They perform better in school and are better behaved. The cognitive benefits of a 15-25 minute burst of moderate intensity exercise have been found to last for at least 30 minutes after the exercise has finished. Twenty minute bursts of exercise increase brain processes and enhance cognitive control for up to one hour post exercise.2

Active learning engages and challenges young people’s thinking using real life and imaginary situations. It takes full advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by: Spontaneous play Planned, purposeful play Investigating and exploring Events and life experiences Focussed learning and teaching.

Key Stage 1 Teacher There is no downside to this way of teaching! Be smart in your approach and make specific links to your literacy targets.”

Year 5 Teacher I was sceptical of this approach at first, but when I did the practical activities my pupils really got it and I had to find extension activities.”

Wellesbourne Primary School, Warwickshire

THE IMPACT OF AN ACTIVE APPROACH Catherine Fitzpatrick, Primary PE Specialist at Royal Park School, Kent, describes the impact of the work she was involved in with the Youth Sport Trust: Our school is a two-form entry primary in school with 43% of pupils being eligible for Pupil Premium funding. The young people have two hours of outstanding PE every week but inside the classroom we felt there was something missing. How could we bring this remarkable physical attainment and excitement into their English and mathematics learning?

By working with the Youth Sport Trust, we started to develop and trial resource ideas for getting pupils physically active during lessons. We focussed on our Year 3 pupils, a very energetic group, to see if their engagement in mathematics lessons and consequently their attainment increased on the back of making lessons more active.

The data-handling mathematics lessons involved competition where pupils had to generate and collect their own data. This was a huge success as it allowed the pupils to see the real life elements of mathematics and how they could use them in everyday situations.

Pupils who were less likely to engage in mathematics were really inspired by our new active approach which in turn ensured better progress. By the end of the school year, 71% of our Year 3 pupils reached or exceeded national expectations.

In addition we selected pupils in Year 1 and Year 4 who were falling behind in phonics and reading. We developed a football phonics programme that seemed to inspire them to love reading and engage in learning. So far this project has seen pupils, and in particular boys, go from being non-readers to saying they love reading!”

OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH YOUTH SPORT TRUST MEMBERSHIP Active Literacy – using PE and sport to raise achievement in English explores practical teaching strategies alongside resource cards linked to reading, writing, speaking and listening for Key Stage 1 and “Unstoppable”, a specially commissioned book for Key Stage 2, by author Dan Freedman. “Unstoppable”, written in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust, is Dan Freedman’s first multisport book that tells the story of twins who are bitter rivals. The rivalry of tennis player, Roxy and footballer Kaine runs deeper than just sport and the book draws out life lessons as well.

To purchase this book, please visit www.youthsportdirect.org/unstoppable Active Numeracy — using PE and sport to raise achievement in mathematics develops an understanding of the link between PE and mathematics and how to apply it in a school setting.It explores practical teaching strategies in Years 1 to Year 6 and an introduction to the ‘Maths of the Day’ teaching programme.

1 — RAISEonline is an online tool that provides data to schools to support their ‘self-evaluation’ (www.raiseonline.org).

2 — Designed to Move: Active Schools A Guide for UK Head Teachers, Nike 2015.

To find out more about these programmes, please contact membership@youthsporttrust.org

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PROVIDING INCLUSIVE SCHOOL SPORT FOR ALL

ADE ADEPITAN

Paralympic bronze medallist

Ade Adepitan is a Paralympic bronze medallist and renowned TV presenter. The new Youth Sport Direct ‘Best of British’ multisport wheelchair ambassador answers a few questions and explains how the need for truly inclusive sport in schools has never been more vital.

AT WHAT AGE DID YOU FIRST START PLAYING WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL? Probably at around 12-13. A charity in the area which is now called ‘Go Kids Go’ came across me as my friends pushed me through the streets in a shopping trolley and asked me to join their wheelchair basketball team.

DID YOU PLAY WHEELCHAIR SPORT IN SCHOOL? I’d never heard of disability sport before.

I used to try and play football with my friends in the playground and dreamed of being the first person with polio to play for England!

HOW IMPORTANT IS INCLUSIVE SPORT IN SCHOOLS? Very important, it’s going to help integrate young disabled people and make them feel like an integral part of society, that they’re part of the team and able to express themselves. I think people will really see the benefits of this in 20-30 years time when people don’t think twice about seeing someone with a disability in

sport. We need to play our part and help schools provide inclusive opportunities in sport.

HOW CAN WE OVERCOME THE CHALLENGES OF INCLUSIVE SPORT IN SCHOOLS? By having an introductory chair for a range of sports, for example the Youth Sport Direct ‘Best of British’ multisport wheelchair, this will help eliminate the barrier of price for schools. When you first start playing sports, you don’t need a chair specific to each sport and this is often unachievable for most schools’ budgets anyway. In the first few years, a multisport chair is perfect as it gets people enjoying sport which is crucial. If I’d had equipment available at school, I would have started playing from nursery!

THE ‘BEST OF BRITISH’ MULTISPORT WHEELCHAIR IS £450 – IS THIS REALISTIC FOR SCHOOLS? It is the best quality chair out there for the price. The equipment will last for a number of years if maintained correctly and now we have a quality chair being manufactured in the UK by Roma Sport.

I also don’t think you can put a price on providing someone with life-changing opportunities. It can open so many doors for young people. My first chair cost over £700, but if I hadn’t sat in it, I wouldn’t have become a Paralympic athlete and experienced the incredible things that I have.

DO YOU THINK THE SCHOOL GAMES ARE HAVING AN IMPACT ON THE GROWTH OF WHEELCHAIR SPORTS? Absolutely, we have a lot of players in our team who have played at the School Games. It’s seen as an honour and an indication that sports are being taken seriously at school level. We even missed lots of our players at a tournament as they had been chosen to play wheelchair sport at the School Games! I can’t complain though because if I’d had the opportunity to be part of it when I was growing up, I’d have loved it!

Ade Adepitan is the official ambassador for the Youth Sport Direct ‘Best of British’ multisport wheelchair.

For more information, please visit www.youthsportdirect.org/multisportwheelchair SPRING 2016

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SUE CAMPBELL

Chair, Youth Sport Trust

MISSION 2012: LESSONS FOR SCHOOL LEADERS

Baroness Sue Campbell, Youth Sport Trust Chair and Chair of UK Sport from 2003–2013, answers a few questions about the lessons that school leaders can learn from the experiences of Team GB from 1996-2012.

Think of yourself as an athlete. I guarantee you it will change the way you walk, the way you work, and the decisions you make about leadership, teamwork, and success.”

Mariah Burton Nelson — Author, Coach and Athlete

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At the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Team GB won one gold medal and finished 36th in the medal table. At London 2012, Team GB won 65 medals, 29 of which were gold, and finished third in the medal table, behind sporting superpowers USA and China.

HOW WAS THIS TRANSFORMATION ACHIEVED? In 1996 UK elite sport was politically divided and lacked a long-term vision.

Decision making was based on shortterm, expedient factors and the needs of athletes were rarely the first things considered. The introduction of National Lottery funding led to some improvement at Sydney in 2000, where Team GB reached 10th in the medal table. The team appeared to plateau four years later in Athens 2004, again 10th in the table. It seems that athletes, who were now able to train full time, were achieving despite, rather than because of, the system and that Team GB’s natural place in the order was around 10th in the world.

WHAT DID IT TAKE TO GO FROM GOOD TO GREAT? We committed to a constant purpose which was ’one team, one vision‘. It was vital to secure agreement that athletes should be at the heart of the system, and that their needs were paramount. The rowing squad used the question ‘does it make the boat go faster?’ about every decision they took in order to ensure that there was no variation in preparation or performance, hence why they took the collective decision to miss the opening ceremony at Beijing in 2008. There was now a willingness to make the right long-term decisions rather than the most expedient ones, and the determination to show compassion without sentimentality.

This can be translated to schools. As a leader, have you established a constancy of purpose in the team that you lead? Is this purpose understood by your pupils — the athletes of the school system upon whose performance you are ultimately judged? Are the needs of your pupils at the heart of your decision making when allocating resources, especially your human resources? Do you allocate teachers to their classes based on a notion of ‘fairness’, or to make your departmental boat go faster?

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

Vince Lombardi, NFL coach

Research consistently shows that variation within a school is more significant to pupil progress than variation between schools. A vital factor in achieving success at the London 2012 Olympics was to reduce the variation in performance between different sports. What could the less successful teams learn from the more successful, and what could the more successful learn to make them even more effective?

Every sport was asked to rank itself from red to green every six months on three key components: the state of the athletes; the state of the system or support around theathletes; and the climate or culture around the team as a whole. Results were extremely transparent for all to see but sports were positively encouraged to report concerns honestly — a red rating led not to criticism, but to a system wide effort to support improvement. Sports with a strong rating for a particular area were partnered with weaker ones to share learning and reduce variation between sports. It soon became apparent that every team had things they could offer, and every team had things they could improve on.

Most schools track the performance of their ‘athletes’ very closely, but do you also encourage your staff to be open and honest about their own performance, or does the culture of your team encourage people to hide their weaknesses? How do you use professional development in your team to narrow the gap between the most and least effective performers while raising the bar for everyone?

THE ‘NO COMPROMISE’ CULTURE WAS WIDELY REPORTED AFTER THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS, WHAT CAN SCHOOL LEADERS LEARN FROM WHAT THAT MEANS AND HOW IT WAS IMPLEMENTED? A discussion with a cleaner during a visit to the McLaren Formula 1 team underlined what a no compromise culture meant. He took immense pride in the cleanliness of his garage and was completely aware of the importance of his role to the success of the team. He wore the same uniform as every other member of the team, and was just as involved as everyone else in celebrations at the end of the race. He knew that he was appreciated for his professionalism and attention to detail. The accumulation of these tiny details, or as popularised by Dave Brailsford, former British Cycling Performance Director, the idea of ‘marginal gains’ is essential for success in elite sport. It is also a powerful way of managing performance in pupils and teachers. Asking a teacher to move their lesson from satisfactory to outstanding is a daunting prospect, but asking them to think of five ways of gaining an extra minute of quality learning time from a lesson is both manageable and achievable. This is where the quest for consistency really begins. What can you do as a team to establish a culture of ‘no compromise’? This doesn’t mean a culture of blame or refusal to accept mistakes, rather a determination not to make the same mistakes over and over again. How can you make ‘marginal gains’ in the performance of your team that together lead to a transformation in performance?

WHAT’S THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE FOR SCHOOL LEADERS? Reducing variation within the team and improving consistency of performance is vital to the success of any team. The role of the leader is to establish a common purpose, a commitment to excellence, a climate of transparency and a culture of collaboration.

This requires leaders who have a clear moral purpose, who make courageous decisions based on great data, and who have the integrity to pursue what is right, rather than what is expedient or popular.

For more information about the Good to Great CPD package, please contact info@youthsporttrust.org

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KATE THORNTONBOUSFIELD

Development Manager, Youth Sport Trust

PRIMARY PE AND SPORT PREMIUM: HOW TO MAXIMISE IMPACT AND ENSURE SUSTAINABILITY Is your spending of the Primary PE and Sport Premium allowing for improvement and sustainability in the delivery of high quality PE and school sport?

Kate Thornton-Bousfield looks at how the South Cambridgeshire School Sport Partnership has maximised its impact and ensured sustainability of the funding.

The start of the Autumn Term brought revised guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) about the Primary PE and Sport Premium funding. More clarity about allocation, ideas of how it could be spent and the importance of evidencing the impact of the funding was provided. The guidance has cleared some muddy waters but has also brought some challenges and posed some questions from those schools that have already allocated their funding.

The DfE have made it very clear that the objective of the funding is to ‘make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of PE and sport that’s offered’.

This means that you should use the Sport Premium to: Develop or add to the PE and sport activities that your school already offers Make improvements now that will benefit pupils joining the school in future year.

The DfE’s vision is that all pupils leave primary school physically literate and with the knowledge and skills to equip them for a healthy, active lifestyle. The focus of the spending must lead to long-lasting impact of this vision.

To achieve this, it’s really important to be strategic. We have produced a guide to help schools maximise their funding

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as well as an evidencing the impact tool with the Association for Physical Education (AfPE).

This guide, which is available on the Youth Sport Trust’s website, helps schools reflect and plan before making investment decisions and provides details of how we can support you. This support includes helpful tips including how to work as a cluster to pool resources and increase extra-curricular activities, how to appoint

a PE or sport coordinator and the benefit of using external expertise effectively to build capacity within the school staff.

PRIMARY PE AND SPORT PROGRAMME In the South Cambridgeshire region, the local School Sport Partnership supports 45 primary schools, nine secondaries and one special school. They have a vision ‘that all young people should receive high quality PE lessons as well as have access to an outstanding range of extracurricular sport and physical activity opportunities, both on their schools site and within their local community.’ Their vision is achieved through their bespoke Primary PE and sport programme, which provides teacher training, high quality sports competitions and opportunities for sports leadership and volunteering.

As part of the programme, the partnership uses Sport Premium funding to employ two PE specialists full time to work across 18 primary schools. Each specialist works with nine schools for at least half a day per week. These specialist PE teachers, one secondary and one primary teacher have accessed our Key Stage 1 and 2 training to up-skill them for their role. At the start of each academic year, they meet with the PE teacher.

The specialists work alongside the subject coordinator to improve the provision and quality of PE and school sport including auditing and reviewing current provision using the Sport

Premium tool. They work directly with classroom teachers across all age groups to provide high quality, in-house professional development through observation and group teaching to ensure each member of staff becomes a confident and effective PE practitioner.

Importantly, specialists also helped each school to develop a system to measure and report on progress against OfSTED criteria.

Through the programme, the specialists are supporting schools to carry out the Youth Sport Trust Quality Mark self-review. As a result of this, they can devise a clear PE Development Plan which includes methods of monitoring and reviewing the impact of the Sport Premium funding and specifically the Primary PE programme. Clare McDonnell, the local School Games Organiser said: In this way we hope to ensure that schools see the clear impact of the Primary PE and sport programme and find a way to make it self-sustaining.”

Overall, the response from the schools involved has been very positive. Feedback included that the young people were much more enthused by PE, more receptive to learn and participate fully in lessons as well as improving their subject vocabulary and use of technical terms. The young people are now notably more supportive of each other and work more effectively in teams, and this has had an impact in other areas of the school curriculum.

Whole school improvements were noted too with success when targeting certain young people to improve behaviour, self-esteem and raising aspirations. Clare McDonnell said that the teachers are more confident with their planning and delivery of PE and the lessons are better structured with clear progression and differentiation. Improved progression between year groups and within classes has supported long term curriculum planning and it’s also helped to develop behaviour and class management techniques. The schools have workable policies and a vision for the future and the new subject leaders have quickly gained confidence in developing their role within school, due to the support they have received.

Finally, the specialists have also supported the implementation of learning outside of school hours and provided a solid link between the schools and the school sport partnership to maximise all available opportunities.

Cluster competitions have been and continue to be hosted across the year.

This is just one example of how a school has used the Sport Premium funding in a sustainable way to improve PE and school sport. Hopefully it has provided you with some ideas and inspiration about how to fulfil the vision. The take home message is that it is important to take some time to reflect and ask yourself: how are we using the funding; is it sustainable; and is it leading to improvements in PE and school sport.

To view the guidance document, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/sport-premium

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KATY WEDGWOOD, School Inclusion Lead, Woodlands Special School, Plymouth

STEP INTO SPORT INTERNATIONAL

Katy Wedgwood provides an insight into Step into Sport International. This is a bold and innovative project which brought 49 young people from 10 schools across England together for an overseas residential leadership camp that changed perception, raised aspirations and boosted confidence in all who took part.

For many young people, their first residential school trip abroad is one of the most rewarding and memorable experiences of their school lives. For those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) the impact can be magnified tenfold.

At Woodlands Special School, a Youth Sport Trust member school based in Plymouth, offers education for 75 pupils between the ages of 2-19 years with complex physical and sensory difficulties. Many pupils also have medical needs and other difficulties that may affect their learning. Our school is an example for the whole of the South West peninsula with pupils coming from Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall to learn.

Woodlands Special School has been part of the Youth Sport Trust Inclusion Schools network since its inception in 2011. With 60 expert schools around the country, this network supports schools in providing high quality PE and meaningful competitive sport opportunities for young people with SEND.

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Being part of this network has given our school some fantastic opportunities, the most recent of which was a chance to work with nine other schools across England to plan and deliver the first ever International Step into Sport camp.

OUR STEP INTO SPORT PROGRAMME, WHICH HAS BEEN RUNNING FOR 18 YEARS, AIMS TO: Develop young people as confident young leaders and positive role models Support them to learn more about themselves Help them be the best they can be both in life and in sport.

Since 2012, our networks for Inclusion and for Leadership, Coaching and Volunteering have jointly delivered Step into Sport camps in every county in England, bringing SEND and non-SEND pupils together as leaders and participants.

Supported by the Youth Sport Trust Inclusion Schools and the Bailly Thomas Foundation, 49 young people spent an amazing four days at the PGL centre in Northern France - Ch창teau du Tertre, Normandy.

The pupils learnt new skills, tested themselves as individuals, grew into teams and became leaders.

For the schools, it was an opportunity for all of us to try something radically different. By bringing a hugely diverse group of young people together, we were able to create a genuinely new working environment for all of them.

The way in which the boundaries between SEND and mainstream pupils began to blur was inspirational. One of the highlights of the week for me was to see the change in one of the SEND pupils, Reece, who had never been away from home before. By the end of the week, he was acting as a mentor to a mainstream pupil on the abseiling wall, encouraging her to have a go.

Kevin Luke, Mill Ford Special School, Plymouth, Devon: Spending five days in France away from friends and family gave the pupils life skills that were priceless. On day one our pupils were individuals; on days two and three they became a team. On day four they became young leaders and on day five they became young men.”

This change has already had an impact in school.

Robyn Becker, Mill Ford Special School, noted: It was a week that had an immeasurable impact on the pupils we took. Sam in particular has changed in school. His confidence has improved hugely and his ability to help others and use initiative is much better. This week I watched him help another pupil in a swimming lesson, showing him how to use a float and assisting with his technique without being asked by staff. That would not have happened without the impact of the trip. The pupils are now working with other classes across school using their new skills. Rather than looking afraid when I asked them to help others, they now put themselves out there and relish in the opportunity to show their leadership skills.”

Owing to his particular special needs, Woodlands pupil Cory was accompanied by his mum, Jo as his carer on the trip. She noticed the enormous impact the trip had on him, and changed her view of his abilities: I was feeling very negative about it, thinking that Cory won’t do any of it.

Sometimes my heart was in my mouth but I did not hear one negative word from him and he had a go at everything. Watching my son do everything put in front of him was an amazing experience.”

PGL used the opportunity to work with a team of highly experienced SEND teachers to improve their own staff’s expertise. They too grew in confidence daily, and learned the golden rule about working with SEND pupils. Don’t look at their disabilities; don’t ask their teachers or carers what they can do; just ask the young people themselves.

The mainstream pupils joined the trip as experienced young leaders, but they left with so much more. The experience of leading with, and being led by, the young SEND people has fundamentally changed their perceptions of what it means to be a leader.

It has helped them to understand that there are not two groups of people, SEND and non-SEND, but that we all have a range of needs and abilities that need the right support and the right environment to flourish.

Every teacher reading this will know that organising and leading an overseas residential trip is a huge undertaking, and doing so as part of a group of 10 schools spread across England with a wide range of young people with additional needs certainly didn’t make it any more straightforward. There were moments before we left when I doubted my sanity for offering to organise it. Would I do it again? Yes — we were already planning next year’s trip on the ferry home!

For more on Inclusion Schools or Step into Sport camps, please contact info@youthsporttrust.org

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KAY BATKIN

Development Manager, Youth Sport Trust

POOR MENTAL HEALTH IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO PUPIL ACHIEVEMENT

What role does mental health play in pupil achievement? Kay Batkin looks at how Northamptonshire schools are working closely with the Youth Sport Trust to put PE in the driving seat and ensure all young people in the county are in the best state of physical, social and emotional wellbeing to achieve their full potential.

Mental health and pupil wellbeing are currently under the spotlight and rightly so. There are some hard hitting statistics to highlight these issues: 850,000 pupils have mental health problems and three pupils in every classroom have a diagnosable mental health disorder¹ One in five young people show signs of an eating disorder² 92% of 15–16 year olds suffer exam stress3 While waiting for their exam results, one in five young people said that the worry was affecting their health, one in six said they had experienced panic attacks and more than one in 10 said they were unable to sleep at night4 20% of 15 year-olds may be self harming5

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This provides a worrying picture regarding health and wellbeing of young people in our schools. We all want young people to reach their full potential but this is only possible when we prioritise mental health and ensure every young person is in the best place to learn and achieve.

SO WHY IS WELLBEING SO IMPORTANT TO PUPIL ACHIEVEMENT? There is significant research to link positive mental health, healthy active lifestyle and academic achievement. If anyone is in search of such evidence, then the Public Health England documents ‘The link between pupil health and wellbeing and attainment’ and ‘Promoting pupils and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing’ are a great starting point.

We should take mental health seriously. It needs to be talked about, catered for and prioritised in the same way as physical health. Schools

are under increasing pressure to get the very best out of pupils. In order for pupils to learn and flourish, they need to be in the very best physical, social and emotional state.

School can’t continue to do more English, mathematics and revision in the hope that the extra work will necessarily deliver improvements in pupils’ performance. Instead time needs to be invested in creating young people who are in the right place to learn and achieve.

1 — Green, H., McGinnity, A., Meltzer, H., et al.

(2005). Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain 2004. London: Palgrave.

2 — Mental Health Foundation, 2012; www.youngminds.org.uk 3 — Childline, 2011; www.youngminds.org.uk 4 — Youth Index Report, Prince’s Trust, 2013 5 — Health and behaviour in school aged children; World Health Organisation 2014.

IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN PE AND WELLBEING? Running parallel to the decline in mental health is the time allocated to PE within secondary schools. Anyone spending time in schools across the country will tell you that a reduction in time allocated to PE is a common theme.

PE and school sport have a unique role to play in the physical, emotional and social development of pupils and young people. Primarily for its role in developing physical activity patterns for life, but also for the unique opportunity the physical learning environment presents for developing confidence, self esteem, resilience and other essential life skills which affect emotional wellbeing so much.

Northamptonshire County Council is the first Local Authority in the country to seize the opportunity to make this approach a reality across all their secondary schools. Working in partnership, we have launched PE2020 Active Healthy Minds.

This trailblazing project could transform how schools impact their pupils’ mental wellbeing through PE, sport and physical activity and in turn see positive outcomes in terms of improved achievement and attainment.

PE IN THE DRIVING SEAT PE2020 will provide all schools across Northamptonshire with access to our new secondary PE programme, My Personal Best (My PB). Through training, resources and a dedicated network, My PB supports schools to build an innovative approach to PE through a clearly communicated life skills approach.

Well developed life skills provide young people with effective coping mechanisms that not only enable them

to reach their potential in school, but set them up for life outside of the school gates.

Kingswood Academy in Corby, Northamptonshire, is one of eight trailblazer schools helping to develop the project. The school have been working with us on how to identify teachable moments and explicitly focus on the development of a set of key traits: creativity, aspiration, resilience and empathy, as learning outcomes.

Matthew Gamble, Head of PE, Kingswood Academy, said: This approach ensures PE is relevant to the lives of all young people in our school.

As professionals we are aware of the life skills that PE and sport can teach. However, we aren’t always explicit about how this is taught and we rarely present this to our pupils as the a key outcome of PE. The Youth Sport Trust’s My Personal Best is a tool to engage all young people to recognise, articulate and transfer life skills to other areas of their learning and lives.”

While the PE offer provides universal opportunities, it is clear that some young people will require a more targeted approach. PE2020 Active Healthy Minds builds on 20 years of experience, through a range of thought leading interventions.

It provides an opportunity for schools to access a bespoke menu of programmes designed to target those most at risk of academic underperformance. This includes programmes such as Get to the Start Line, Girls Active and Young Health Champions. Our team of Changing Lives Athlete Mentors also provide vital inschool inspiration and delivery to bring this work to life.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND WELLBEING PE provides the foundation for lifelong physical activity patterns. A key strand of the project is to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and the positive contribution getting active can make to increased mental health.

People who take exercise regularly are less likely to be depressed, anxious or tense and more likely to feel good, concentrate and sleep better. With the statistics presented earlier regarding mental health in our schools, activity with these associated benefits should not be overlooked for the future of young people in schools.

If you would be interested in getting involved in the PE2020 Active Healthy Minds programme, we would love to hear from any Local Authority, academy chain or school collaborations.

For more information on PE2020 Active Healthy Minds, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/PE2020

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LORI RANDALL

Head of i-Academy, Youth Sport Direct

INTRODUCING THE I-ACADEMY Lori Randall introduces you to the i-Academy, a new venture between Youth Sport Trust and its trading arm Youth Sport Direct. The ‘i’ reflects the innovative nature of all our training and development support and the focus on the individual.

ABOUT US

WHAT IS THE OFFER?

In response to learning trends through Youth Sport Trust programmes, insight and understanding from those working with schools, it was clear that we needed to explore a different approach to our training and continuing professional development (CPD) offer.

The i-Academy course directory contains a range of targeted and focused learning programmes that will help the Youth Sport Trust achieve its mission of building a brighter future for young people through PE and school sport. All are designed to enhance your impact in professional practice and in career development.

This insight inspired us to set about creating a blended learning centre, offering both accredited and nonaccredited vocational qualifications to individuals, or to the school to make a significant difference to the skills and competencies that are required to ensure young people receive the best sporting start in life.

After coming on Board in December 2014, and previously having worked at the YMCA – I have been able to bring a wealth of relevant knowledge and experience, in turn helping us secure awarding body status in April 2015, with both the YMCA and Active IQ. This means that we can secure accreditation for our own courses, and offer truly bespoke opportunities to a broad range of ‘customers’.

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HOW CAN THE I-ACADEMY BENEFIT YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND YOUR SCHOOL? Accreditation through the i-Academy will bring a tangible benefit to the ‘learner’ – allowing young people and those working with them to build their portfolio of achievements.

Increasing time pressures on schools mean that there is a squeeze on accessibility to CPD opportunities.

The i-Academy seeks to respond to those challenges and provide a flexible and highly accessible response – a blended learning approach.

WWW.I-ACADEMY.ORG.UK

Achieve your best with specialist and bespoke learning and accredited qualifications.

Through a blended approach and dedicated support team you can take your personal and professional development to the next level, at your pace.

Accredited courses available now: Level 3 Award

Level 3 Award

Level 4 Award

in Education and Training

in Assessing Vocationally Related Achievement

in the Internal Quality Assurance of Assessment Processes and Practice

Learn more about our suite of courses

The i-Academy aims to only offer courses that will make a difference and will be designed to respond to your learning needs.

In addition to the courses on offer, the i-Academy will allow selected schools the opportunity to deliver courses through a satellite model approach. This will be through those schools leading work for the Youth Sport Trust on specific health and wellbeing activities. This pilot will deliver the new YMCA Level 1 Award for Young Health Champions, which is an exciting qualification we have developed.

WWW.I-ACADEMY.ORG.UK

INFO@I-ACADEMY.ORG.UK

In this model, individual schools will become ‘satellite centres’ of the i-Academy and therefore approved to deliver the qualification. This includes: A briefing webinar Access to the syllabus and assessment materials Ongoing email and telephone support Funding for up to five Young Health Champions to be registered with the awarding organisation Access to additional staff training Liaison and administration support from the i-Academy.

HOW WILL THE I-ACADEMY SUPPORT DIGITAL INNOVATION AT YOUR SCHOOL? The i-Academy has the skills and experience to undertake bespoke e-learning content development, featuring a wide range of interaction types and advanced techniques such as 3D animation. We work collaboratively with a range of partners, including schools, and can provide consultancy services.

HOW CAN THE I-ACADEMY BENEFIT INDIVIDUALS? The i-Academy offers courses for practitioners wishing to achieve qualifications to support the delivery of vocational programmes in a range of settings, including schools via a blended learning approach; providing valuable CPD for individuals.

To find out more about the i-Academy, please visit www.i-academy.org.uk

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NEIL ROLLINGS Chairman, PADSIS

A THOUGHT PIECE: THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETITIVENESS

Neil Rollings looks at why competition is so important and how winning and losing can have an enormous impact on young people.

Too much winning, or losing, is not good for children.

In more rational moments, most teachers and coaches agree with this. The theory is sometimes better than the practice, however, when good sense is suspended in moments of high emotion on the touchline.

Perhaps more significant then, is competitiveness.

After all, the purpose of fixture making is to seek competitiveness — uncertainty of outcome that stimulates endeavour and provides excitement for all involved. It is the excitement of competition that many children value; often ahead of the result.

Schools take part in thousands of fixtures every week, involving tens of thousands of children. The scale is enormous, and therefore the challenge of making these games “competitive” is significant. As the gulf between the highest and lowest performing schools widens, this task becomes ever greater. The search is for the “right” games, where uncertainty is matched by sporting tone, something where the elusive theory of winning with dignity and losing with honour can be realised.

Firstly, it must be recognised that there is a minimum amount of winning that is necessary - on average — to maintain commitment of players, to allow the satisfaction of triumph and the ability to deal with victory. Secondly, there is probably a maximum desirable level of winning, where after the opportunity to learn from the experience of defeat begins to diminish.

Therefore, a fixture list must have three groups of opponent. It must have ‘aspirational’ fixtures, against teams that might have advantages and be, on average, slightly stronger. These will stretch the better players,

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provide memorable triumphs in strong years and test resilience. It must have ‘benchmark’ fixtures against opponents of comparable quality and culture and against whom winning is a genuine uncertainty. And finally, there must be the ‘reassurance’ fixtures that give weaker years an opportunity to experience a share of close competition, and maybe some winning.

One school’s aspirational fixtures may be another’s reassurance ones.

How then can competitiveness be measured? Perhaps by taking the total number of goals or points in each game — if the margin between the teams is within 25% of the total could this define ‘competitive’? If so, it would allow a school to measure the success of its match programme both in the proportion of ‘competitive games’, as well as the simple statistics of winning and losing. If a game is lost by an uncompetitive margin it would be deemed a double failure.

If the full impact of school sport requires endeavour, commitment, triumph, failure and resilience, then it is necessary to ensure that pupils encounter a suitably wide range of experiences. If defeat allows the learning of life lessons in self restraint and dealing with disappointment, it is important that this becomes a structural part of the programme.

Building, measuring and assessing the competitiveness of the match programme is an essential task for leaders of school sport. It is an opportunity for school-wide quality assurance to maximise the impact of sport in developing desirable personal outcomes.

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DEVELOPING YOUNG PEOPLE’S CHARACTER AND RESILIENCE The move to focus on character education is a landmark step for our education system. Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan believes it will send a clear signal that our young people are being better prepared than ever to lead tomorrow’s Britain. Michelle Lawrence looks at how the pilot of My Personal Best – Life-Skilled through PE, is supporting this ambition?

One year on from the Department for Education’s initial character education announcement and with the end of the Spring Term around the corner, maybe it’s time to start looking at whether a repositioning of PE could be a key factor in improving confidence and preparing young people for life outside of school. As a pilot school, that’s the challenge we were set by the Youth Sport Trust. And the one they set to any school that attended the Power of PE events in the Autumn Term 2015.

My Personal Best — Lifes-skilled through PE (My PB) was introduced in the last edition of INSPIRE and I’m glad that we

were one of the 25 pilot schools to take part. All schools have implemented the approach in their own way, whether it’s integrating My PB into new PE assessment frameworks, focusing on life skills in particular or developing greater access for autistic young people. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to talk through how we implemented it at our school.

INTRODUCING THE MY PERSONAL BEST PROGRAMME INTO OUR SCHOOL Introducing My PB into Key Stage 4 lessons has provided a focus and relevance to core PE, beyond participation in an activity.

Pupils are so much more aware and it has helped them to see a distinction from Key Stage 3. Our pupils immediately engaged with the My PB approach, particularly those who have been previously disengaged from physical activity. This has been achieved through explicitly identifying the life skills that are developed through our existing curriculum. A key part to lessons has become the discussion about how these skills have not only been used and developed within PE lessons, but how they can then apply them in other areas of school life, particularly when studying for examinations.

We have introduced a My PB Passport for pupils to support self, peer and teacher assessment; it simply recognises and captures individual progress from novice, to apprentice, to skilled in PE and in life.

The training our PE department received from the Youth Sport Trust has been

MICHELLE LAWRENCE PE Teacher, Ormiston Horizon Academy, Stoke-on-Trent

invaluable and it provided us with the focus and motivation to implement My PB from September 2015. Being part of the pilot we feel the project has the potential to positively influence pupils through whole school interventions, not purely in PE. In the future we would like to establish cross-curricular links that allow My PB to be developed throughout the academy.

97% Of PE teachers said they would make changes to their own practice as a result of the My PB professional learning workshops.

99% Of teachers rated the My PB workshops as good or very good.

Excellent teachers already produce well-rounded pupils and the Character Education Grants will give more schools the support, inspiration and resources to go even further.”

Nicky Morgan 1 Department for Education (December 2014) England to become a global leader of teaching character

To find out more about the My PB programme, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/mypb SPRING 2016

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SUZY BROADHEAD Programme Manager, Youth Sport Trust

HUB SCHOOLS: ADDRESSING THE WOLFENDEN GAP AND RAISING STANDARDS AT THE SAME TIME

Suzy Broadhead takes us through how schools can address the Wolfenden gap and raise standards at the same time.

We work with over 50 schools across England which have been designated as a ‘hub school’ in a variety of sports including combat, cycling, watersports and wheelchair sports. Working closely with National Governing Bodies, County Sport Partnerships, local clubs, coaches and other sporting providers, we support these schools to increase the range of opportunities available for pupils to engage in less traditional school sport. ’There is a strong focus on changing young people’s attitudes and behaviours towards sport to develop a lifelong habit towards physical activity. The creation of pathways for sustained participation in sport in their local community, as well as using the sports to impact on wider life skills and whole school improvement.

Hub schools are beacons of best practice in their local community that use non-traditional school sport to innovatively demonstrate the role sport can play in young people’s lives. They work with other local pimary and secondary schools to advocate the benefits of

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non-traditional sports and provide training for staff and young leaders to enable them to introduce new sports into the curriculum and extracurricular programme. This provides young people with the opportunity to find the right activity for them, and supports them to become proficient, confident and competent to continue the sport within their local community and into adulthood. Hub schools also support local primary schools prepare their pupils for the transition to the secondary school environment, both in PE, sport and to be ready for all that joining secondary school brings.

Brownhills School, West Midlands, became a watersport hub school in September 2014, with the aim of increasing the provision for their pupils and those of other secondary schools to take part in outdoor activities. With the support of British Canoeing and the County Sport Partnership, the school has developed a new school-based kayak club which is run by young leaders with support from teachers.

This has led to a satellite club being

set up by Royal Sutton Coldfield Canoe Club, which provides qualified coaches to run the club close to the school.

“One young pupil was often in trouble at school but since becoming involved in the extra-curricular kayaking club at school he has been very excited about the prospect of joining the community satellite club. For the first few sessions he had to catch two buses in order to get himself there, showing great commitment and enthusiasm. His behaviour at school has since improved and he is getting into a lot less trouble. He has now gone on to become a member of the club in his own right.”

Ian Mitchell, Head of PE, Brownhills School, Walsall

This wider educational impact can be seen across many of the hub schools in the way they have provided activities which have supported pupils develop their confidence when undertaking an activity they would not traditionally participate in. In addition, developing their interpersonal skills and teamwork when working with pupils across a range of year groups has resulted in pupils being more confident when taking part in new activities around school. Pupils also show greater levels of responsibility to commit to an extra-curricular club, which they have not previously demonstrated towards the traditional clubs that were on offer.

Hub schools have been instrumental in helping to create new resources for schools. An example of this is ‘Launch!’ – a multi-skill, land-based watersports festival and activity pack – to inspire and engage young people into the start of a watersports adventure without the immediate hurdle of getting onto the water. It is designed to be used indoors and develop the common core skills associated with canoeing and rowing.

The combat hub schools have supported the development of a resource that provides an introduction to the basic skills required to take part in a range of combat sports including boxing, judo, taekwondo and wrestling. The wheelchair sports hubs have been involved in a consultation on a sports wheelchair suitable for schools use (pages 8-9).

The wheelchair sports hub schools are focussed on providing pupils with a strong foundation of skills to enable them to feel more confident playing sports in a wheelchair. In partnership with WheelPower, all schools have taken part in an ABCs of wheelchair sport skills course for school staff and young leaders.

ARBOUR VALE SPECIALIST SPORTS COLLEGE As part of the wheelchair sport hub school status, Arbour Vale Specialist Sports College has introduced and developed opportunities for young people to take part in two Paralympic wheelchair sports; rugby and basketball.

There have been several events where schools have been invited to bring pupils to take part. Both disabled and non-disabled young people have the

opportunity to take part in these inclusive events, either by mixing up teams or school versus school in a School Games inter-school competition.

The school held a wheelchair rugby session and invited Steve Brown, Youth Sport Trust Athlete Mentor and ParalympicsGB London 2012 wheelchair rugby captain. Steve worked with teams from five local schools to develop their wheelchair skills and introduce the game of wheelchair rugby. This was all delivered with a focus on leadership, responsibility and self-motivation.

Steve’s style of delivery was very motivating for both staff and participants. I have already been asked to organise something similar in the future due to the learning and fun had by all. This was a good opportunity for the special school pupils to compete on an equal basis as their mainstream peers, due to the high level of skill they have in their wheelchairs.”

Karen Erikson, Arbour Vale College, Berkshire LINKS TO YOUTH SPORT TRUST MEMBERSHIP As Youth Sport Trust member schools, many of the hub schools utilise a range of their membership benefits to support the development of their school’s PE and sport offer using their hub specialism as a hook to other opportunities. These include using athlete mentor visits to inspire groups of pupils currently not actively engaged in school life, accessing bespoke CPD opportunities for staff and being able to get priority access to new programmes to support young people in and through sport.

To find out more about the hub school programme, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/hub-schools

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DOMINIC JUDGE Assistant Director, Youth Sport Trust

YOUTH SPORT TRUST MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

Youth Sport Trust Membership brings a range of different benefits for schools, including the chance to get involved in some fantastic events. Dominic Judge takes a look at our influencing opportunities, partnerships and your members’ calendar for the months ahead.

WHAT WE DO ON BEHALF OF OUR MEMBERS 1

We have a presence on the Ministerial Board on PE and school sport and have worked with partners to provide members with a freely available evaluation and impact tool to measure their effective use of the Primary PE and Sport Premium.

2

We continue to campaign at the highest levels on behalf of members. Our response to the DCMS Sport Strategy consultation focussed on the importance of high quality PE, school sport and physical activity and its place in supporting health and achievement in schools.

3

We work closely with health partners like Public Health England to bring members the latest insight and evidence on how to support their pupils’ health and wellbeing in order to enable better pupil progress and achievement.

4

We have invested in redesigning our website, due to be launched shortly, to make it more accessible for our members. The new website will provide members with a bespoke experience for their level of membership.

5

In the secondary sector, we continue to work closely with civil servants and policy makers in education and health regarding the place of PE in the secondary school landscape.

Throughout the Autumn Term in last year we ran Power of PE events, which were free for members, to support PE Departments make a strong and compelling case for the profile of PE in their schools.

We are working hard on a brand new competitive and flexible membership offer for the 2016/17 academic year so watch this space.

To find out more, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org

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LOOKING AHEAD 28 JANUARY 2016 Youth Sport Direct will launch their new i-Academy at the House of Lords.

The i-Academy will provide high quality e-learning and accredited qualifications. To find out more visit: www.i-academy.org.uk

3 MARCH 2016 The Youth Sport Trust’s 2016 Conference takes place at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. A star studded awards dinner precedes the conference on the evening of Wednesday 2 March: www.youthsporttrust.org/conference

18-20 MARCH 2016 Our Girls Active and Inclusive Futures Camps will be held at Loughborough University. These simultaneous camps look at empowering girls to lead physical activity at their own school and changing perceptions of young people with disabilities: www.youthsporttrust.org/camps

20-24 JUNE 2016 Registration for our Rio 2016 themed National School Sport Week (NSSW) is now open and can be accessed online: www.youthsporttrust.org/NSSW

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CHRIS ELLIS

Programme Manager, Youth Sport Trust

ACTIVE KIDS PARALYMPIC CHALLENGE LAUNCHED AHEAD OF RIO 2016

Youth Sport Trust have partnered with Sainsbury’s and ParalympicsGB to help all schools celebrate and feel part of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Chris Ellis highlights how your school can get involved and even win a trip to watch the Paralympic Games in Rio!

This summer will see the world’s best athletes competing at the Paralympic Games in Rio. Sainsbury’s, ParalympicsGB and Youth Sport Trust have teamed up to create a free web-based resource to inspire schools and young people to try out a number of inclusive sports.

The Active Kids Paralympic Challenge creates the opportunity for young people to take part in four inclusive sports;

ATHLETICS SITTING VOLLEYBALL

GOALBALL BOCCIA

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THE ACTIVE KIDS PARALYMPIC CHALLENGE PROVIDES RESOURCES TO: MOTIVATE Online resources, which link the challenges to the PE curriculum, help teachers and young lers increase participants excitement and enthusiasm for inclusive sports.

ACTIVATE Sixteen simple, easy-to-organise inclusive challenges that encourage young people to strive to beat their best scores. Using the inspiration of the four sports, skill-based challenges resource cards and films will be added to the website throughout the lead up to Rio to motivate and inspire young people to participate in Paralympic sports.

CELEBRATE There are many ways to celebrate your school’s engagement in the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge. The ‘our community’ section on the website provides inspiration on how to deliver the programme by allowing schools to showcase stories and images to celebrate participation. By sharing showcases schools can win an inclusive playground makeover.

National School Sport Week takes place from 20-24 June. To celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic year, we are encouraging all schools to hold a Rio 2016 themed sports festival. Holding your own festival based on the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge is a great way to get the whole school involved, and celebrate your involvement. All registered schools will have access to festival resources which will give tips and ideas on what to do, as well as a festival pack, including banners, wristbands and medals, to make your day as exciting as possible.

To find out more or to register for National School Sport Week, please visit www.youthsporttrust.org/NSSW

David Butterworth, Head of PE at Redwood School in Rochdale provides his thoughts on the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge: “As a generic special education secondary school, Redwood is always looking to introduce new inclusive activities to our PE provision, and Active Kids Paralympic Challenge has helped us achieve this. The simplicity and inclusiveness of each challenge allows us to develop fun and attainable goals for each young person participating.

“The challenges have been received with enthusiasm by our young people who have enjoyed working as a team.

Furthermore, we are eager to train our Young Leaders to deliver each challenge in order to give our young people more ownership of their learning.”

GET SET ROAD TO RIO APP At the core of the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge is the Get Set Road to Rio app which uses technology to encourage more young people to participate in physical activity and to have fun while doing so. It challenges teams of young people to travel the equivalent distance from London to Rio (over 9,000km) by converting the physical activity they undertake into kilometres. Within the app, schools can log activity undertaken through the challenges and win special badges and amazing prizes.

WIN A TRIP TO RIO To reward schools and young people’s participation we are offering the chance to win incredible prizes. These include: A trip to Rio 2016 Paralympic Games Inclusive school playground makeover ParalympicsGB Athlete school visits and signed kit Youth Sport Trust Athlete Mentor visits.

London 2012 Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock said: “At school, I had to quickly learn to fit in around the sports on offer. But for kids with a disability today, through the Active Kids Paralympic Challenge, things will be easier, and you can have all kids playing the same games.

“The time schools invest meeting the challenges can be converted into kilometres travelled on the Get Set Road to Rio app. The school travelling the furthest can win the chance to travel to Rio and support Paralympics GB next year. So fingers crossed I see you there!”

Active Kids Paralympic Ch

allenge 2016

To register your school and take part, please visit www.activekidsparalympicchallenge.co.uk

SPRING 2016

@YOUTHSPORTTRUST

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THE POWER OF COLLABORATION KEVIN BARTON

Head of Achievement, Youth Sport Trust

Educational Endowment Foundation are funding Powerful Learning Conversations, a Youth Sport Trust project that brings together teachers of PE, English and Mathematics.

The ambition is to improve the frequency and quality of conversations about learning between pupils and their peers and between pupils and their teachers. Kevin Barton looks at the impact of the collaboration on teacher behaviour in the schools involved.

Through Powerful Learning Conversations 20 schools examined the impact of increasing the quality and quantity of feedback conversations between pupils and their peers and between pupils and their teachers.

Key to the programme was the principle of collaboration between teachers across different areas of the school – specifically PE, English and mathematics.

Teachers worked in triads to jointly plan, deliver and evaluate lessons that focussed on developing powerful conversations. These helped pupils take greater ownership of their own learning, and helped teachers become more skilled and confident in allowing their pupils to have more conversations in lessons.

now I definitely appreciate them having that talk time and being able to discuss things.”

Another teacher commented: ”I think people just thought that they’re going to talk all the time, but actually this has taught me a great deal about stepping back myself. Having more confidence in them to actually be able to do things together, it makes them so much more independent as well... it’s really beneficial for those teachers who think they allow group work/ talking but actually talk considerably more than they realised.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT ON PUPILS’ ATTITUDES TO LEARNING?

The University of Exeter asked individual teachers how they responded to this challenge and they produced a report on the impact of the programme:

In particular, teachers described how the project had supported independent learning and encouraged resilience. Teachers noticed how these powerful conversations promoted pupils voice and discouraged passive participation.

One teacher said:

One teacher commented:

”I liked to be safe... I don’t like a lot of talk, I wanted them to be quiet...

“Something we’ve talked about in the (English) department is

whether they should be called ’empowering‘ conversations because it’s empowering the pupils with the kinds of skills to take ownership over what’s happened... they’re not always looking to you for the answer...”

An English teacher comments on a recent lesson where she was observed by an OfSTED inspector: “Ofsted came in to observe one of my lessons and there was a powerful conversations going on. It was something they picked up on because they said it promoted British ideals and values because the idea was that anything you said can’t be wrong because it’s just your opinion.”

The impact of the programme has gone beyond the short-term effect on individual lessons into more permanent changes in pupils’ capacity for learning: “For me, that powerful bit isn’t necessarily where the feedback is going on, it’s them being able to have that conversation on their own... if you can teach pupils to be more resilient and to think on their own... that’s the end product.”

To learn more about Powerful Learning Conversations, contact matt.pauling@youthsporttrust.org YOUTHSPORTTRUST.ORG

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To realise the inside go outside Bring out the best in your students with a PGL adventure course.

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Multi-Activity – over 50 adventure activities at 15 residential centres in the UK UK Explorer – activities and excursion-based trips Primary to Secondary Transition – building confidence to deal with change Discover More – activity and subject-based courses French Language and Culture in northern France

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Multi-Activity – fun and challenging activities at 15 residential centres in the UK Year group bonding – build confidence through adventure Revision weekends - study complemented by adventure activities Sports weekends – netball, football coaching, street dance and cheerleading French Language and Culture in northern France Watersports and adventure in southern France and Spain Skiing and snowboarding in Europe and the USA

schools@pgl.co.uk

30 31

HEADTEACHER’S THOUGHTS DENISE GLADWELL Headteacher, St Breock’s School, Cornwall

Denise Gladwell is co-chair of the Youth Sport Trust’s Headteacher Strategy Group and a member of the Youth Sport Trust Board.

I have the utmost respect for athletes of all ages and abilities; the dedication, courage and commitment they show is inspirational. Whether the athlete is a six year old gymnast or a Paralympian, they are always striving to be the best they can possibly be.

From waking early on dark winter mornings for training to doing their homework and shopping, it all has to be done somehow.

In a similar way to athletes, schools have their own Olympics in the form of Her Majesty’s Inspection and Ofsted. If you are one of the lucky ones, the timeframe is roughly the same as for the Olympics; if not you could be facing more frequent visits as this is supposed to help schools to achieve their personal best.

This is where the similarity ends.

Unlike the Olympics when athletes prepare for their specific event, schools cannot predict the distance they may have to run, jump, swim or row. The challenge for schools is that they face a new inspection schedule on a regular and frequent basis.

Let’s say Ofsted visits and you gain the medal, maybe not the gold you worked for but hopefully at least you got on the podium. There follows a slight lull in proceedings and the training regime is somewhat relaxed.

YOUTHSPORTTRUST.ORG

Though it’s not for long as the next Olympics for schools is not far away.

Time flies in schools and there is no such thing as a quiet term.

Unconsciously, all the school staff begin to up the ante, driving themselves to better their performance and achieve personal bests. They demand more of themselves, put their lives on hold to ensure not only a podium position but strive for the top spot.

Why do they want this? They want this because they believe deeply in providing children with the best possible life chances.

I do not underestimate the response of the teachers and school staff to tackle frequent and stringent Government-driven initiatives, it’s inspirational. The result in schools is having to constantly revise their training schedules as they realise that they need to retrain for new ‘events’.

School staff, leaders at every level, volunteers, coaches, parents, grandparents are all helping children to be the best they can be — now that’s what I call inspirational.

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Youth Sport Trust: 2016 Conference (3 March) and Awards Dinner (2 March) Ricoh Arena, Coventry An opportunity to learn new ways to remove achievement barriers With Baroness Susan Greenfield delivering the opening keynote and a host of leading experts from the world of sport, school achievement and improvement, our conference offers those working with young people practical advice and ideas on how to strategically use PE and school sport to improve wellbeing, nurture leadership and boost achievement.

Held the night before conference, our Awards Dinner will take inspiration from the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games and promises to be a night of inspiration.

Three great reasons to attend 1.

Leading experts will share research and practical examples for tackling the barriers to student success, as well as advice on addressing emotional and mental wellbeing.

2.

Share best practice ideas with fellow practitioners, and meet leading experts and exhibitors in the world of PE, sport, school achievement and improvement.

3.

Engage with leading policy makers, and find out the latest on the Government’s sport awnd childhood obesity strategies to maximise the wellbeing of your whole school.

Places are limited — register at www.youthsporttrust.org Find out more: events@youthsporttrust.org @youthsporttrust #YSTconf

SPONSORED BY

SUPPORTED BY

ANOTHER LOGO

Youth Sport Trust. Wellbeing. Leadership. Achievement.

We are committed to building a brighter future for young people through PE and sport.

HEAD OFFICE SportPark Loughborough University 3 Oakwood Drive Loughborough Leicestershire LE11 3QF T 01509 226600 F 01509 210851 E info@youthsporttrust.org Registered charity number: 1086915 Registered company number: 4180163 YOUTH SPORT DIRECT T 01509 226624 E information@youthsportdirect.org SOCIAL MEDIA YouthSportTrust

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