Active Herefordshire and Worcestershire is delighted to announce the winners of the Primary PE and Sports Premium awards 2022-23. Designed to improve the quality of primary PE, the PPSP awards shine a light on schools making a positive difference in young people's lives.
We were overwhelmed with the quality of applications for this year's PPSP awards & are proud to recognise our winners and 'highly commended' schools.
Award Winners:
Whole School Improvement: Withington Primary School (Hereford)
As a rural primary school in Herefordshire, many pupils travel in to school by car. This increases traffic, limits parking around the school and creates dangers during pick up and drop off. As a school, they felt they needed to change people's attitudes around travelling to school; encouraging a more active everyday lifestyle which could benefit both physical and mental health, whilst also continuing to develop the school's community links and at no costs to families.
'Walk Home Wednesday' was born! Using the Living Street programme (WOW), they started by asking children to make at least one journey to school, each week, on foot. The staff and parents walked the half mile from the school to the village hall and, despite the inclement weather to start, everyone was still smiling! Their online tracker allows the children to input how they got to school and this builds their motivation, as they earn badges every month. On the first Wednesday, there were 8 pupils that walked. Now there are 29, which is a third of the school!
"The initiative has grown in popularity and each week. This has reduced the amount of traffic around the school by at least half. Parents also like the scheme and have organised their own walk home from school on other days, which again has reduced the congestion around the school." - Catherine Willis (Head of Primaries)
Commitment to Physical Activity & Enhancing Health: Chadsgrove School
Pupils at Chadsgrove have complex physical disabilities and learning difficulties; improving their life outcomes is imperative to their wellbeing. The aim of their project was to improve coordination, strength, agility, endurance, confidence and resilience through cycling.
A local organisation came in to the school to teach children the basics of cycling in different stages – learning how to balance, pedal, go around corners and what to do it they wobble! They have also been taught about road safety and signs.
This project has seen pupils improving their balance and coordination but also their confidence to learn a new skill, resilience to keep practicing particularly when the steps to learning to cycle became challenging. The project has now become embedded in the curriculum allowing pupils to make progress at their own pace. The school has purchased bikes and the staff have had training meaning that this project can continue and pupils coming into the school will benefit from the investment.
"Learning to ride a bike has been very good for balance and coordination but also thinking skills and resilience." Staff member
Upskilling Staff: St George's C of E Primary School (Worcester)
St Georges is a small primary school in Worcester. This year, with fewer coaches coming in to school, they decided to have a big focus on teacher CPD. As a school they highlight areas that staff are not so confident in teaching (through consultation) but also think about the progression of skills that they need to know in order for each child to develop. They developed a rolling programme of CPD which takes into consideration new staff, what staff require and what the whole school needs. This year has included whole staff training in gymnastics and OAA, but also staff specific CPD.
After each CPD session, staff are asked how they feel teaching that unit now. Several staff had not had any CPD in PE before coming to the school and have found it extremely useful. Following each CPD session, a lesson observation takes place to see how the staff have taken the training on board.
The impact of providing staff with CPD each year has led to staff teaching higher quality PE lessons that show progress through skills and knowledge taught to the children. Confidence of staff has increased greatly, which has led to positive outcomes in pupil learning. Looking at the children, their fundamentals and understanding of movement has improved. This has also had an impact when entering competitions and festivals, with two teams representing Droitwich and Worcester City in the School Games last year – a direct impact of the lessons taught in school.
"Recent gymnastics CPD has transformed the way I teach it. It has led to better outcomes as well as more enjoyment for the children." Y2 teacher.
"The range of activities shown to us in Dance CPD was great. Clear progression from EYFS to Y6. The training made my lessons more engaging for the children." Reception teacher.
Highly Commended:
Whole School Improvement: Broadheath CE Primary School & Stretton Sugwas Primary School
Commitment to physical activity and enhancing health: Madley Primary School & Much Birch Primary School
Upskilling Staff: Madley Primary School & Michaelchurch Escley Primary School
