Amy Skipp: September 2024
The Paralympics have been great this Summer and we fully support the calls for this to kickstart more inclusive PE and school sports across the country.
We have worked with the Youth Sport Trust for the last 3 years evaluating their highly successful Inclusion programme that the DfE is highlighting as an example of good practice and will hopefully continue to support and roll out further in the future.
The programme uses professional development, advice, support and modelling effective approaches to:
· Enhance accessibility of physical education and school sports for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
· Improve physical activity provision for all pupils.
· Improve the quality of PE and sports teaching for pupils with SEND.
· Increase opportunities for pupils with SEND to achieve 30 active minutes daily.
· Enhance engagement and participation of pupils with SEND in PE and sports.
· Develop character education for pupils with SEND through PE and sports.
We found that delivery of support and activities were high with over 55,000 interactions between the project and school staff, resulting in over 5000 schools, 500 school games organisers, SENDCos, TAs and even 1000 trainee teachers supported.
Being part of the programme (accessing support, advice and attending events) led to school staff:
- Feeling more informed and knowledgeable about how to make their teaching inclusive
- Being more linked in to SEND and PE support networks
- Thinking more creatively about how to deliver PE and school sports so that it allows all pupils to take part and succeed
- Increasing their confidence and competence to deliver high quality PE for pupils with SEND.
- Teachers reported how these changes the project was bringing about were having a beneficial knock-on effect on pupils. We showed pupils were:
- Achieving more active minutes every day
- More engaged with school, resilient and confident
- More connected to others and getting more fun out of sports and physical activity
“The Inclusive Sports Programme has shown increased competencies, self-esteem, skills and knowledge to the young sports leaders. This has impacted their individual development, increased their status in school, increased their self-discipline and time management, given them a sense of connectedness, belonging and feeling of being valued, which has all contributed to more positive mental health.” School Participant
We look forward to continuing our work with the Youth Sport Trust, looking to see how they can develop the project even further and engage more schools, staff and those involved in PE and physical activity, with the aim of getting children and young people more physically active, engaged with school and happy.
You can read the report we wrote of our 3 year evaluation here
And find out more about the brilliant Youth Sport Trust’s work on inclusive practice here: https://www.youthsporttrust.org/programmes/targeted-interventions/inclusion-2024#:~:text=Through%20the%20Inclusion%202024%20programme,key%20life%20and%20leadership%20skills.