The Sainsbury’s School Games Mark is a government-led awards scheme launched in 2012 to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community. Schools in England are able to assess themselves across bronze, silver and gold levels of the Mark. We had a visit from someone from Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University to check our assessment. I’m delighted to say we’ve just been awarded a silver level for 2013-14 and proudly display our ‘medal’ on our health page and PE and sports funding pages.
Here are some extracts from the report (dated 04 November 2014):
Moortown Primary School has been awarded the Silver Mark Award for the academic year 2013/2014.
Moortown Primary School received a validation visit for their application for a Mark award on Tuesday 21st October 2014. It was clear from the evidence provided that the school met the criteria to achieve a Silver Mark and in some areas of the criteria met Gold standard.
Every pupil in the school receives at least two hours of PE and school sport per week (in curriculum time only). The school organised school sports days for KS1 and KS2 that incorporated teams within the school. The school’s sports leaders plus other pupils helped in the organisation and running of the sports day.
Moortown Primary School has an excellent take up of extra-curricular sporting activities with 43% of the students participating in these activities; this exceeds the silver standard criteria. It is clear that sporting extra curricular activities are a crucial part of sports provision at the school with numerous lunchtime clubs and after school clubs taking place.
The school provided clear evidence of offering talented young sports people support in developing their sporting potential. The school have adopted an excellent policy called a ‘learning mountain’; this involves talented children teaching other students their specific skills during PE lessons. Alongside this the school has a well-maintained gifted and talented register.
The delivery of sporting opportunities at the school is good with 7 sports being offered at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2. This exceeds the standard for silver. Moreover, the school provided clear evidence of providing three B teams in football, rugby and football. The school showed excellent signs of promotion of School Games activity to parents in newsletters and have an active school twitter page, which regularly posts photos and team results. Moortown have an excellent policy in place where some students are asked to write match reports on school fixtures and then the reports are uploaded onto the school’s website.
11% of pupils are engaged in leading, managing and officiating in School Games activity, which exceeds the percentage required for Silver, the Gold standard is 20%. While the school actively engages students in the planning and development of School Games activity, currently the school does not have a school sport organising committee or crew in place. There is a need for a separate school sport organising committee to be in place to meet the criteria for gold in this category.
The school provided clear evidence of having three active links with local sports clubs and utilising sports coaches to support school sport. It is also clear the school uses the resources available to them to train wider school staff to support school sport. Last year the school brought in a specialised sporting teacher and this member of staff has trained other members of staff to lead sporting activities in the school.
The following are suggested improvements to the collection of evidence should the school wish to submit for gold next year:
• Looking at ways to increase the extra-curricular activity from 43% to above 50%, and increasing the percentage of leading / managing / officiating activity to meet the 20% requirement at gold. The Your School Games website has a section around School Sport Organising Crew which may highlight some additional roles and responsibilities that are included.
• Currently Moortown Primary School does not have a separate school sport organising committee in place. To achieve a gold Mark, a separate sporting committee would have to be in place and regularly meet to discuss sporting matters at the school. It was noted that the school does have a council and therefore to formulate a separate school sports committee should be straightforward.
• The school provided excellent evidence of having 3 active links with local sports clubs, which all seemed to be longstanding partnerships. However, to achieve a gold Mark Moortown Primary School needs to have at least 6 active links with local sports clubs.
• Currently Moortown Primary School offers 7 sports at level 1 and 7 sports at level 2 of School Games activity. To reach gold standard the school needs to be offering at least 9 sports at level 1 and 9 sports at level 2. Alongside this the school currently only has three B teams competing at level 2, to reach gold standard the school needs to have four B teams and one C team in place.
Congratulations on achieving your Silver Mark.