Overview
Through consultation with the Head of Education and school management it was agreed that the sport and physical activity co-ordinators would have dual management, within school by a designated member of the school management team and centrally through the School Sports Programmes Officer, allowing both local priorities and the corporate programme to be implemented as appropriate.
Following the recruitment and selection of the co-ordinators, a comprehensive induction programme took place covering areas such as information gathering, methods of monitoring, Girls in Sport training and Disability Awareness training.
A core objective identified and agreed through consultation with principal teachers of physical education was that in order to have an informed systematic approach and long-term plan of where we are and where we need to progress, we had to gather the correct baseline information.
During their initial months in post, the co-ordinators carried out extensive audits establishing a picture of existing provision within schools, which allowed the highlighting of specific priorities for individual schools. This resulted in the adoption of the following main approaches:
offering alternative activities within the curriculum - increasing the range of activities on offer
reducing class sizes in order to improve teaching and learning opportunities
having SEN specialist classes in both indoor activities and swimming
carrying out group work with marginalised/disaffected pupils to re-engage non-participants in core PE
carrying out transition work.
The six sport and physical activity co-ordinators then designed and implemented programmes of work in each secondary school. The programmes targeted the identified needs in each school in terms in both curricular and extra-curricular provision.
Once the programme had been implemented, the sport and activity co-ordinators gathered comparative data to measure the impact of the project.