Shaping attitudes towards physical activity

Schools are uniquely placed to provide young people with opportunities for physical activity, shaping their attitudes to sport and helping them to develop life-long habits. Vicci Wells, head of sport at Youth Sport Trust, shares how schools can deliver excellent PE provision.

This summer sees the eyes of the sporting world turn to Paris as the Olympic and Paralympic Games are set to dominate the sporting summer.

Over 10,500 athletes will take part in 32 different sports at the Olympics with a further 4,400 expected to take part just a few weeks later in the summer at the Paralympics. Thousands of people will watch in stadiums in France with millions more glued to TVs and increasingly phones, to catch the latest action and cheer on their sporting heroes to gold.

Major sporting events are often tasked with inspiring a generation or creating a legacy and many people in this country will have fond memories of Greg Rutherford, Jessica Ennis-Hill and others on Super Saturday at the London Olympics back in 2012.

Incredible as it may seem to many of us, this was 12 years ago, so many young people won’t remember these events, but earlier this year in order to help keep the inspiration alive, multiple Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah joined the Youth Sport Trust as our National School Sports Champion, launching Mo’s Mission, encouraging all children and young people to get active for 60 minutes a day of PE, sport and play.

And it’s not just the Olympics that inspires of course, just recently, the International Paralympic Committee were at a European congress sharing the impact global sporting events can have for all those watching, participating and volunteering.

Supporting children and young people

The Youth Sport Trust is the leading UK children’s charity for improving young people’s health and wellbeing through sport and play.

Currently, too many children are inactive, which is creating a generation that is unhappier, unhealthier and more distracted than previous generations. Less than half of children and young people meet the Chief Medical Officer’s recommended guidance of 60 minutes of activity a day.

We work with schools, educators and organisations to advocate for the importance of physical activity and provide support and guidance to help improve the provision of PE and school sport.

One of the issues facing PE, is many people from older generations will have bad memories of PE in school, with ill-fitting kit, muddy cross country runs and freezing cold netball or rugby matches. However, much of that has changed with modern approaches to delivery and with young people involved in the design of programmes in many schools.

Alongside this, it is a well-known that PE, school sport and physical activity bring a wide range of benefits to address many of the challenges faced by young people in society today. As well as improvements in physical and mental health, physical activity is shown to increase social wellbeing, lead to improvements in brain function and can play a big part in helping with absence, attendance and behaviour in schools.

Schools are uniquely placed to provide opportunities for physical activity for young people, shaping their attitudes to PE, school sport and activity and helping them to develop life-long habits. The Youth Sport Trust has a range of tools and resources to support schools to provide a high-quality PE provision.

Many of these resources are free to download from our website and can help new teachers or newly promoted heads of department get started straight away with improving their PE offer. In addition, the Youth Sport Trust offer a number of different options and pathways to support schools even further.

Well Schools

One way for schools to ensure wellbeing is embedded into everyday life in a schools is to became a Well School. This is a movement of schools that places just as much emphasis on health and wellbeing as it does on academic performance and understands that children and young people are more effective learners when they are happy and healthy.

School Games

The School Games is a programme which puts physical activity and school sport at the heart of schools, and provides young people with the opportunity to enjoy and learn through competition to achieve their personal best. Each year schools can apply for the School Games Mark which is a government-led awards scheme which rewards schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. It allows schools to evaluate and benchmark their PE provision and develop action plans for future improvements.

Membership

For schools that want to go a stage further we have our Membership offer which is designed to maximise the impact of a school’s PE and Sport Premium investment.

Membership offers support and continuous professional development through a series of webinars, events and regular emails, ensuring schools are at the forefront of the latest innovations in PE and school sport.

PE Life Skills Award

This award recognises and rewards students who have developed life skills through PE.

We often talk about the additional skills that sport and PE can provide such as resilience and teamwork, and while this is often noticed, all too often it can go unrewarded.

The award lets teachers recognise students’ learning through assessments in the PE curriculum. It helps students value PE and allows them to develop a positive relationship with physical activity for the future.

Inclusion 2024

Inclusion runs through the heart of our work and that’s why we’re proud to lead the Department for Education funded national consortium for Inclusion 2024, where we work collaboratively with pupils, schools, expert practitioners and stakeholders to drive quality and accessibility of opportunities for SEND pupils to participate, engage and learn through PE and School Sport.

This work is delivered through a network Lead Inclusion Schools across England who are recognised for their expertise in engaging young people with SEND to participate, compete and lead through PE, physical activity, and school sport. Up to date resources have been added to the Youth Sport Trust website with Paris 2024 activities included to help students learn new skills based on Paralympic sports.

National School Sports Week

Finally, a simple way for every school to get involved and raise awareness of the importance of physical activity is to sign up for National School Sports Week.

Earlier this year in June, we saw over 4,000 schools take part in the annual celebration of PE, physical activity, and school sport which provides the perfect opportunity for everyone to find an activity they love so they can begin to feel the benefits of an active lifestyle.

Alongside everything listed above, we’ve created a simple Top Five list of things everyone can think about, to ensure you’re delivering excellent PE provision in your school.