Pupils and teachers at William Ransom are already seeing the impact of the Sports Premium Funding, both in their lessons and in the sports clubs they attend. The school has allocated the funding in a number of different ways to maximise the benefits and ensure it has a long term legacy.
Specialist Sports’ Providers
Skipping
“My favourite activity this year was learning new ways of skipping with the skipping coach!” Oliver, 8.
For some children skipping was a brand new activity for them, for others the coaching was an opportunity to refine their methods and be tutored by an expert. Of course many pupils were already avid skippers but they attained new skipping heights – learning challenging and wacky new ways to skip, like the pretzel!
Lacrosse
“We’ve made the national lacrosse finals. I’m so excited!” Leighton, 10.
Using a specialist Lacrosse coach has brought benefits in a number of areas. Teachers have been able to use the coach for professional development learning new skills and techniques to benefit the children immediately and to inform their planning in future years. The coach was also able to focus on our more able lacrosse players and refine their skills and help them compete in external competitions.
Basket ball
“I’ve seen American basketball on T.V but never thought I’d get to play it at school. It’s great to play something different.” Lauren, 10.
An external coach, who spent time with a number of classes across Key Stage 2, has brought long term changes to the school curriculum. The children really engaged with this new activity as it brings many skills taught throughout the years together in a competitive structured way and therefore it has been added as a permanent fixture to Key Stage 2 plans.
Paralympic sports
The school was adamant that the success and inspiration of the Paralympic games 2012 would not be forgotten and therefore a number of sports were introduced to children in one off sessions and spin-off clubs were set up to further encourage those children who would not usually take interest in extra-curricular sports.
“At first, when I saw boccia I thought it looked really easy but I was so wrong. It is really skilful and I loved all the tactics and strategy involved. I wouldn’t normally sign up for a club, but I did boccia at lunchtimes and then went to a competition at another school.” Taylor, 9.
Boccia, wheelchair basketball, seated volleyball, visually impaired football and table cricket were enjoyed by children across the whole school with boccia becoming a lunchtime club.
Professional Development
With the advantage of the Sports Premium Funding, staff training has been able to be approached in a number of different ways to maximise time, money and skills.
External training sessions for tag rugby, cricket and tennis have been attended by a number of staff members across both key stages. Where sports are repeated across and within key stages it is important to provide progression. Therefore, these training sessions provide an excellent opportunity for teachers to understand how skills and complexity develop and to know what each other are teaching.
External coaches are regular visitors to school, but you won’t find our teachers watching from the side lines, they become active participants, learning the skills as the children do, and learning from the coaches how to teach and organise the activities.
“It was so useful to be able to work, as a pupil, in the lacrosse lessons taught by Jack, an external coach. Not only was I able to brush up on my skills, I was retrospectively able to enrich my own planning with relevant and fun games for my next class. It was also a great opportunity to work with my pupils and encourage their team participation and sense of fair play.” Mrs Burr, Class teacher.
Sports Apprentice
“A Sports Apprentice is not just a spare pair of hands for setting up PE activities, Dain has become an essential part of every PE lesson, ensuring all children achieve the planned objectives.” Mrs Light, PE Co-ordinator.
New to the 2013-14 academic year and due solely to the legacy funding has been the employment of a Sports Apprentice and without doubt this initiative has been the biggest benefit of the Sports Premium Funding opportunities.
This new role has brought multiple benefits to the teaching and learning element of PE. In the first instance, Dain assists with setting up equipment for all PE lessons, but then he becomes an integral part of the lesson helping with differentiation. He is able to focus on small groups of those children who need additional support. Conversely, those who are talented and need pushing or more competition can be extended.
With a Sports Apprentice all ‘games’ units of work are able to come to the anticipated conclusion of intra-class competitions. Having another referee is key to this successful outcome.
“PE lessons with Dain are great as I get to see if I can beat him too. We also get to play more games against each other.” Tom, 8.
As well as working during class time, Dain also helps with clubs in school time such as hockey, speed stacking, badminton, boccia and lacrosse and out of school clubs such as boys and girls football.
School Sports Partnership
Additional funding has seen the school able to benefit from the external and competitive activities organised by the North Herts School Sports Partnership. Dozens of children of differing abilities have taken part in indoor athletics, boccia, multi sports (at the Legacy Games) and tag rugby tournaments to name a few and to date. These tournaments not only showcase PE talent at William Ransom, but they do more than this, they give the children a sense of worth, belonging, ownership and sportsmanship that intramural tournaments alone cannot deliver.
Resources
At William Ransom we believe that being well-resourced aids excellent teaching in PE and to this end additional resources have been purchased, not only to replace aging equipment but also to introduce new activities to the curriculum.
New resources this academic year have included:
• Class set of KS1 throwing and catching balls
• Class badminton set
• Basketball hoops and class set of balls
• Gymnastic mat storage trolleys
• Gymnastic wall bars
• Spring board