Work Programme: School Games

A grant to finance sporting facilities and the development of girls football provision was awarded to a North Norfolk school this year. This was enabled by the Opening Schools Facilities Fund, a funding stream managed and coordinated by Active Norfolk’s Locality Team. Through our North Norfolk Schools Sports Partnership, we connected with individuals who could integrate pre-existing provision at this new location. This has resulted in new activity pathways being created, previously unseen in the school, whilst ensuring the impact of the awarded-grant is maximised.   

School Games events run across the academic year and we’ve recognised that many of these smaller district-based sessions don’t receive the attention and kudos they deserve. Whist small in scale, the impact to children and young people is high. This year we have begun to capture these events and showcase these with key stakeholders, broadening awareness and support for the programme.   

The West Norwich and Dereham School Sports Partnership have been running speed-stacking events as part of their School Games calendar with great success. These types of activities, diversifying from the usual activities seen in school PE provision, have seen promising uptake amongst children who do not typically engage with traditional sports. With over 100 students and 5 schools participating, this a great example of the wealth of events taking place across Norfolk that look to create positive experiences for the young people of Norfolk. WNDSSP have a wide coverage of engagement with schools in their area.

This year we have reviewed how we financially support our School Games county offer. Distributing funding to those who know best is fundamental to ensure that resource is allocated to the right places, serving the children who most need it. Up to £2000 was provided to each School Sports Partnership from the Active Norfolk’s Innovation Fund for the Summer term. This gave the School Sports Partnerships the freedom to creatively support the new School Games outcomes. This process was well received and, while we eagerly await the developments for the remainder of this academic year, we have agreed to renew this financial commitment next year. 

A newly commissioned insight tool, Koboca, will support schools to target the right pupils to understand their physical activity needs. It is important that we have the right information to inform the design of the School Games provision. This tool will enable schools to complete surveys with target pupils and send anonymised data to School Sports Partnership network. This forms part of our vision to increasingly use youth voice and coproduction to shape the School Games programme in Norfolk.

Our ambition for the upcoming year is to provide further support and build in additional capacity to Norfolk School Games offering. Recruitment of a dedicated School Games Project Officer has been completed, and three student placements from the University of East Anglia (for the first time) will support this work. These roles will coordinate the School Games programme at a county level both strategically and operationally, developing advocacy materials, developing a county leadership pathway and a School Games council, as well as supporting events and engaging wider stakeholders. A full delivery plan for the 23/24 academic year will be released shortly.