Redcar & Eston School Sport Partnership CIC aims to make a positive difference to children and young people’s lives by encouraging them to be more active. The Case Studies show the impact we have been making across a range of services:
Redcar & Eston School Sport Partnership CIC aims to make a positive difference to children and young people’s lives by encouraging them to be more active. The Case Studies show the impact we have been making across a range of services:
KTS Moves
Kilton Thorpe Academy have created a physical activity campaign – KTS MOVES! As part of this campaign the school want the children to be more active both inside and outside of school. The Redcar & Eston School Sport Partnership CICs’ (RESSP) Active Travel Team were recruited to support the delivery of cycle training. The Active Travel Team worked over three consecutive weeks to build the competence, confidence and motivation levels of a group of targeted children to ride their bikes. The ability levels of the 16 children were very diverse, but the patience and enthusiasm of all three instructors paid off. They supported the children to develop their riding skills by supporting them to steer their bike, avoid objects, stop slowly and improve their spatial-awareness. During the second session the instructors saw a break through in the children’s confidence levels. Most of the students put a helmet on and sat on a bike without any encouragement, some managed the skill of setting off independently and others mastered peddling over and over again (forwards not backwards!)
The third lesson got really exciting. Three students were competent, confident and motivated enough to go off site! Three instructors along with the three students rode on the road along Marshall drive to Marshall Park, passing stationary vehicles and moving traffic, this was a huge achievement for the pupils. At Marshall Park the two boys road supervised for over 45 minutes. Paige stayed on the path until her confidence grew and then she attempted some slight declines and inclines. At the end of the training sessions every pupil had gained so much confidence and had conquered some anxiety or fears they had with riding a bike, balancing or even putting a helmet on their head. The school are now making plans to develop cycling across the whole school and will be increasing the number of bikes they have available for students to use throughout the school day. If any schools or families would like to book some Learn to Ride sessions with the Active Travel Team then please contact: info@ressp.co.uk for further information.
Bikeability
Bikeability training is aimed to increase the competence and confidence levels of children in key stage 2 to ride their bike on the road safely. With the aims to encourage more children to ride their bikes and actively travel to school too.
Martin Deacy, one of our Instructors has received some great feedback over the academic year, really highlighting the impact the training has on the young people.
Whilst at Normanby Primary, Martin was training a pupil who had mechanical issues with her own bike. Martin loaned this pupil a bike to continue her training. The pupil called Aoife, who was in Yr 5 , and Martin described her as quiet and having a lovely big smile. Martin was impressed with how she adapted to a new bike and reported that she was great at listening and learning. All the way through level 2 Aoife tried hard and improved everyday. By the end of the three day course she was really good at looking, could anticipate vehicle speeds and signal much better. After she was told she had achieved her level 2 Bikeability she said she would recommend the course to all her class mates, because she had a brilliant time. Aoife wrote Martin a letter of thanks:
16.5.22 by Aolfie: I came in and my bike wasn’t very good but Martin gave me a bike to borrow, and I didn’t know anything about riding on the road but thanks to Martin he taught me how to do it correctly and safely. I didn’t know how to do somethings like:
-
Indicating
-
Looking over my shoulder
-
A U-Turn
-
Parking my bike.
-
How to stop at a T-Junction
-
T-Junctions
-
and so much more
I can’t wait to practice. Thank you
Well done Martin.
Hearing feedback straight from the child shows that the Bikeability training is essential and making a really impact on so many pupils across the borough.
If you would like to book in Bikeability training for your school or your child then please drop us an email at info@ressp.co.uk
Girls Can Coach
Training
As the lead for leadership and volunteering in the Tees Valley I delivered a full day of influencer training for over 60 Y9 Girls across the county from 9 separate schools, the training looked at a variety of skills needed to lead, but more so how they can influence other girls to take part and enjoy PE and Physical Activity. The day was challenging and at times took the girls outside of their comfort zone, none more so than having a male deliver the training and ask them about issues that see young girls disengaging from PE and Physical Activity.
The girls responded well to me and I gained some fantastic insight from everyone, ensuring throughout that they felt safe in the environment, to express their thoughts and share their knowledge. At the end of the training a high percentage of girls thanked me and said they were inspired and able to feel at ease to share and develop some ideas to engage other girls back at school.
Planning
The girls spent the remainder of the term speaking to girls back at their school to get a clear understanding of what activities to organise and deliver based on need, the impact of this was huge in a number of ways. Firstly, the Girls who attended the training began to understand some of the issues faced by their peers who didn’t have the same interest and passion for Sport & Physical Activity they do, secondly the girls had some real insight into what was needed to engage the girls and hopefully persuade them to take part, more so stay engaged.
Activity
Every school was very different in terms of their delivery model however, all schools targeted Y7&8, two schools ran a programme based around tutor groups which included boys and girls, focussing on developing friendships. The other schools looked at programmes focussing on girls, with a number of outcomes, Increase Physical Activity, engage those girls who have disengaged from PE & sport and finally two schools looked at focussing on Y7 Girls due to them not having much opportunity to take part in sport, mix with other pupils or have the full transition opportunities from primary to secondary due to Covid-19.
Impact
Every programme made positive impacts on both the coaches/leaders, participants and more so PE teachers who realised the traditional offer is not want everyone wants and that those disengaged pupils thoroughly enjoyed the variety on offer to them.
In terms of further impact, it was noted at one school that numbers for after school sessions had risen since the initiative had been in place and new faces arriving weekly. Miss Robinson stated that “Our numbers for after school clubs have grown and the majority are Y7 girls who are showing a new interest ever since the taster sessions took place. Confidence has increased across the new cohort and I am seeing a real difference in the Y7 girls’ attitude to PE and more so the after-school opportunities offered.
At Nunthorpe Academy the leaders used Clubercise to engage those girls who have drifted away from sport clubs and enrichment opportunities, the Clubercise ran as a weekly club and made positive impact with participants and interest across the school, one of the leaders stated that “the girls are really enjoying the classes and have reported back that they can just come along and be themselves away from other people who are judgemental or make you feel not good enough when doing skills in PE, we have also been asked by other year groups if we can open it up to more people as they’ve heard such good things about it.
Trinity Catholic College decided to run some intra house competitions focussing on non-traditional sports and use house teams to engage ALL in the activities and events, due to the nature of events chosen the take up was a huge success with one Y9 Girl commenting that “she has never enjoyed football, netball and the other team sports but would love to keep doing Dodgeball as a club in school as she felt part of the team for the first time since primary school”
The whole programme was a huge success from start to finish and made a fantastic impact across secondary schools in Tees Valley. The overall success, alongside recruiting and training leaders as part of the Girls Can Coach campaign, was the increase across schools in physical activity and sport participation.
Girls Football
The FA & Barclays have an ambition to have equal access to football opportunities for Girls by 2024, through various initiatives the SSP are working with both primary and secondary schools, alongside community clubs to ensure we are working towards these targets.
Normanby Primary School signed up to a variety of initiatives with one proving the most successful yet, the FA’s initiative of The Biggest Ever Girls Football Session on 9th June 2022.
Normanby offered every girl in the school from Foundation Stage to Year 6, 275 girls in total, the opportunity to take part in a football taster session on the 9th June.
Delivery
Every year group were given a time slot to take part in a 30min football taster session with every session tailored to that year group, the staff used their own knowledge and experience alongside some of the FA/Disney resources produced for the Disney Shooting Stars programme. The school promoted the day to parents, wider staff and children in the build up to the week so there was quite a lot of interest and excitement.
The girls took part in fun engaging lessons which focussed on a variety of skills, not only that but focussed on the girl’s behaviour and attitude within the sessions too.
Impact
With 275 girls across the school accessing the taster sessions the school decided to offer a lunchtime club to see if the activities had sparked interest, the club received a staggering 123 girls signing up. Due to demand a rota had to be put in place, not only that but the school were able to offer an after-school option for KS2 girls to attend too.
Due to interest PE lead Mrs Bryson got in touch with the SSP and looked at putting in place exit routes for the girls to go to after school, MFC Foundation and Redcar Town were the two options based on age range and offer for girls to access. From this Mrs Bryson managed to get MFC Foundation to run sessions at the school as after school provision, by doing this the school now has a community pathway in place with a local delivery partner and some of the girls have moved onto club sessions and teams through the MFC Foundation partnership which is excellent.
Mrs Bryson said “There is a real buzz around girls’ football at Normanby and the interest has gone through the roof, we are definitely achieving equal access within school and look forward to continuing to develop the game and hopefully be able to bring multiple teams to any SSP football opportunities in the future. For us at school this was not just a one-off football opportunity, this was the start of a journey, a movement in which girls will be given equal access to football but not only that will use football as a tool to drive physical activity and a lifelong journey in sport.
Away from football the girls have increased in confidence and are mixing with the boys far better at play and lunchtimes but also feel more confident in the classroom in terms of answering questions, speaking up in class, something which they have struggled with previously, this has been highlighted by the teaching staff too.
Mental Wellbeing
RESSP wanted to educate parents and families about the link between physical activity levels and the improvement of mental wellbeing. Working closely with the schools and the Head Start Team they have designed a booklet for every KS2 child to take home during the summer holidays. The booklet includes 60 activities to do during the summer break. 60 activities linked to the 60 minutes children need to be active for each day. To help explain the link between physical activity and mental wellbeing the project also included the development of characters to help explain what happens to our body when we exercise. The Brain Boost Team are: Dougie Dopamine, Nora Noradrenaline, Eddie Endorphin and Sunny Serotonin.
If you would like a pdf version of the booklet then please email: info@ressp.co.uk