Driving up the prominence of PE and sport

One of the leading programmes that the Youth Sport Trust works on to help ensure the prominence of PE and school sport is Sky Sports Living for Sport (SSLFS), which is part of Sky Academy. The free initiative was launched by Sky Sports back in 2003 in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust and has since gone from strength to strength. In essence, the aim of SSLFS is to use sport stars and sport skills to improve young people’s lives.
    
This initiative for 11-16 year olds is available to all secondary schools in the UK and Ireland. The programme is designed to inspire and support every participant in areas relevant to them whether it’s improving confidence, attainment at school or leading a healthier lifestyle. Guildford County School took part in the programme and had Toby Garbett, an Olympian and two-time World Champion rower, as its athlete mentor.

What were you trying to achieve?
The project was aimed to challenge and extend what our gifted and talented pupils know about their own fitness and how to encourage competition where teams of mixed gender and age groups work together.
    
The P.E. facilities at Guildford County limit us in terms of what we are able to offer our most able students, whilst catered for well in lessons by differentiation of task or outcome, rarely are we able to take them all together and really challenge what they can do or what they know. The SSLFS project allows us to do this. The Surrey Sports Park kindly donate the use of their facilities, and it’s a fantastic opportunity for the students to use such a great facility.
    
There has ben a whole school drive to support groups of students, from SEND and Pupil Premium students to Gifted and Talented, the SSLFS project allows us to focus on this group and provide additional challenges and extensions for them in an extracurricular activity. This has benefits within lessons, as we have had uptake at GCSE from all the students who took past in last years project. Additionally, in core lessons staff see the increased confidence in leading others.

What actions were taken?
There are three teams, each with a boy and a girl from each year group. They must assess their own strengths and weaknesses and then use their knowledge of their own fitness to plan as group how they will perform each section of the triathlon. Who goes when, what their responsibility is in terms of distance, when they will swap or rotate the performer. They need to take into account what the strengths and weakness of each individual in the group is.
    
They are responsible for devising how they will train for the event and set their own goals and targets, both individually and as a group. They have to motivate and support each other, there was a brilliant atmosphere of support and encouragement that was driven by competition and the want to win.

What was the impact on participants?
Participation at clubs has increased by 40 per cent since the introduction of the SSLFS project in 2012. This uptake in participation has also increased for those students taking part in activity in a club outside of school. Two of the students have gone on to be signed for Harlequins U18 and Harlequins U16 development squads and one has also gone into both Surrey U16 and South East England U16 rugby teams. Two other students have qualified in regional competition for a cross-country event and four of them have been signed to development squads for football and netball.
    
In the academic year 2013-2014 every student in the school (unless medically excused) took part in a House Rowing event. Those students who took part in the SSLFS project were able to lead groups of students in their own house and use their knowledge from the triathlon event to drive for success for their house. Since the project all of the students have had attendance of over 90 per cent and the majority have had attendance of 95 per cent or better.
    
The biggest impact was on the confidence and positive relationships between the students who took part. Older students felt a sense of responsibility for the younger students, they continue this support in social times and around the school site. Pupils use the school P.E twitter account to show their support and encouragement of each other, highlighting a really positive, responsible way to use social media.
    
The project has raised the profile of the department, it has improved relationships between staff and students and more staff have come forward to help run clubs and training sessions.
    
One young student commented: “It was fun to try something new. I never thought about combining activities I could do into an event like triathlon and it was hard work, so even though my fitness is good I know what I have to improve to be a better athlete and I know what I can do to train for these improvements.”

What was the impact on the school?
As a school there has been a real push to raise attainment and close that gap for targeted groups of students including Gifted and Talented students. The project has allowed us to identify and target specific students in order to challenge and extend them.
    
Guildford County School’s head teacher quoted: “The Sky Sport Living for Sport project has provided our students with an opportunity to work in groups and take responsibility for the success of others. Our gifted and talented students have been given the tools to develop their performance as athletes and a forum to demonstrate a wide range of skills and the school enjoys the celebration of their achievements and the positive effects of the project are seemingly never ending.”
    
The mix of age groups meant the older students had to take responsibility for motivating and supporting the younger students in their group. It came down to trust. Trusting the students to train and support each other.

Further Information
www.youthsporttrust.org